Trials and Tribulations
by essie the fangirl
Summary: "He's not on trial for being a bad husband, Minister. Fortunately for him." I had a feeling that even if I got off today, my wife was going to have me on trial for that very thing for the rest of my natural life. Then again, that might not be very long if she decides to end me herself out of sheer annoyance.
1. The Good Daughter

_So, a quick note about this, it's slightly AU and some of you might ask, "Hey Essie, why the hell is Sirius still living with his parents didn't he runaway at sixteen?" well, dear reader, this is fanFICTION and I have some lovely explanation later on._

 _Anyways, read and review!_

 _Love, Essie_

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 _Eloise, 1978_

"Don't smile too much when you meet them—we're not going to a Muggle amusement park after all." Mother told me sternly as she styled my hair into loose waves—something a bit more controlled than its normal almost-bedhead-but-not-quite state. "And for the love of Merlin, don't mention Muggles."

"If you don't like them so much, why it is that you and Father are giving me to them?" I asked, meeting her eye in the mirror. She put her wand down from where she had been manipulating my dark hair and sighed.

"You would make a much better lord of this house than your brother will. I love him—as much as I love you—but you would be better." She said. "But you're not a boy and you will not be lord of anything; as such, you need a husband and I am _not_ allowing my only daughter to be married to a man that can't provide a life for her in the quality that she is used to."

"Are you sure I'll be safe? Quality of life doesn't mean anything if my new family abuses me. Not all families are like ours—not all men treat women as well as Father treats us." I asked quietly. She pursed her lips and I gleaned a bit of uncertainty there: no, she wasn't sure, but this was the best she and Father could do for me. I needed a husband sooner rather than later—there was no denying that—and they wanted to give me a good life, one that didn't involve living on the streets.

"People say that your fiancé is different—that your arrangement is the only reason he hasn't been disowned yet. The lord and lady of his house—his parents—are getting old and they are desperate to see an heir ensured before their deaths. They wanted to wait for their second son to come of age and to promise him to you instead, but he still has another year before he leaves school and they don't know if they will live so long." My mother said. "Besides, your father and I rather like the older one for you. You'd do well with a rebel, darling—you've always been a bit different yourself. Besides, maybe he'll help you grow into an even better person."

"I've never even met him." I said. "I don't even know his name and you expect me to marry him." My mother smiled a bit sadly at me in the mirror and put a hand on my shoulder.

"I didn't know your father's name when we became engaged." She said. "It's the way things are for people like us, I'm afraid." My parents were relatively liberal for old Pureblood families, but even they wouldn't turn down a marriage from another family so their daughter could marry for love. "You might like him—stranger things have happened, Eloise." She added as she resumed styling my hair.

"Can you at least tell me a bit about him so I know what to expect?" I asked. I knew it was strictly forbidden for the bride-to-be to know her fiancé's name, but maybe she'd tell me just a bit.

"Well, he's your age—eighteen—and while your father and I haven't met him, we've seen pictures and he's quite handsome." She said. "He has a nice smile and dimples. His mother says that he gets into all sorts of trouble at Hogwarts—filling classrooms with dungbombs and such—but he has kind eyes." I smiled a bit. Maybe this wasn't going to be a complete disaster. We were the same age, which almost never happened. My own parents were over a decade apart, my mother only 36, my father almost 50.

"I wish you had sent me to Hogwarts." I sighed.

"I wish you could have gone, but your father and I decided with everything going on in the world, you were safer here and at Beauxbatons than at Hogwarts." She said, putting her wand down and running her hands through my hair a few times. "There—perfect." She said with a small smile. I smiled a bit back at her in the mirror. "Now, I have something for you." Mother added, walking over to my wardrobe and pulling out a garment bag. "You're such a beautiful girl and in the right dress, he'll be begging to marry you before you know it." I smiled a bit at the encouragement as she unzipped the bag to reveal a dress.

"It's beautiful, Mother." I said quietly, touching the fabric.

"A beautiful dress for a beautiful girl." She said, helping me out of my clothes. "Now, normally I disapprove of a lady showing too much of her figure, but you _do_ need to make a bit of an impression when meeting your fiancé." She added as she zipped me up, the dress hugging my curves perfectly. "Eggplant always has been such a good color on you. Purples make your eyes look even more spectacular." She sighed. I looked at my blue eyes a smiled a bit. They had always been one of my favorite features.

She was right about the dress though—it was perfect. The deep purple complimented my light eyes, making them more noticeable. Although my family was giving a bit more liberty with figure-fitting clothes, the dress still had straps—no unmarried woman in her right mind would ever wear a strapless dress—and the neckline was pretty modest, only the barest hint of a dip between my breasts. It hugged the right spots and fell straight down from my knees. This was one of the first times I had actually seen my hips dressed in a way to make them look appealing.

"Now, touch up your mascara and put on your heels while I go get something for you." Mother said and vanished from my room. I walked over to my vanity and checked my mascara for clumps before carefully applying a second coat. I had been told my entire life that my eyes and lips were my best facial features so I usually played them up, adding a touch extra mascara and coloring my lips strong colors—but this time I put on a nude lipstick instead to keep it from clashing with my dress.

"Which heels should I wear?" I asked my mother as she returned.

"Your nude pumps. They're a nice height." She said, placing a box on my vanity.

"They're quite tall—I don't want to tower over anyone." I said as I put them on my feet. While I was of average height (5 foot 6), they really _were_ tall shoes.

"Your fiancé is tall, as is his entire family." Mother said. "Now, this is for you." She said and handed me the box. I opened it to see a beautiful strand of pearls. "They'll go beautifully with the neckline of your dress." She said and put them around my neck, the pearls resting where they should, before tapping me with her wand. "There. Not even a hair will move out of place tonight." I smiled a bit.

"Emily! Eloise! It's time to go! Nathan and I are waiting on you two!" Father shouted from downstairs. I smiled nervously at my mother, who smiled a bit and touched my cheek.

"You look stunning, dear. You have nothing to fear. We'll be with you every step." I nodded a bit and followed her downstairs to see my father and brother in their dress robes.

"Ew, my little sister's hot." Nate mumbled, withering under Father's stare. "You look really good, Lu." He added, holding out a dark green cloak for me, draping it around my shoulders before tying it at my throat and pulling the hood up to cover my face. Another tradition. The bride wasn't supposed to have her face be seen until after she had met her fiancé and they were all seated for tea. Thankfully, the cloak was silk and therefore extremely light—I would have been dying in this thing if it had been anything heavier in the middle of summer.

"Nathan, take your mother's hand." Father said. "Eloise, come." I took his arm and he placed a hand over mine before Apparating with a crack. We appeared on a front stoop and my father politely knocked once Nate and our mother had appeared behind us. A house elf opened the door.

"Lord Bennett." The elf said, stepping aside and bowing low. "Master, Mistress, and the young Masters are in the receiving room. Please follow Kreacher, Lord Bennett." Father nodded and led us all in, me still holding onto his arm, as I couldn't see very well at the moment.

"Master, Mistress—your guests are here." Kreacher said as we came to a halt.

"Thank you, Kreacher. Please go prepare the tea for all of us and bring it to the drawing room. Where in Merlin's name is Sirius? Regulus, go get your brother." A woman said. The only things I could discern about her voice was that she was British (no surprise there) and that she sounded quite rich (also not a surprise). Her children had unusual names. There were footsteps and a pair of dress shoes walked by. "This is Eloise, I presume?"

"It is. Eloise, you don't have to keep your head down right now. Your fiancé is in the other room." Father said. I lifted my head to look at who would presumably be my future in-laws from under my hood. They were an attractive—although old—couple. It wasn't a wonder Mother had said their son was handsome. They looked much more bitter than my parents did though. "Eloise, this is Lord Orion and Lady Walburga Black. You'll be marrying their eldest son, Sirius." I curtseyed a bit.

"It's lovely to meet you, Lord and Lady Black." I said politely. "Thank you for inviting us to your home."

"You as well, Eloise. We were quite surprised when your parents insisted upon you marrying our eldest son—Regulus, our youngest, is quite better mannered you see—but perhaps you can impress some responsibility onto him." Lady Black said. I nodded slightly.

"I'm sure both of your sons are wonderful young men, Lady Black." I said. On the inside, I was freaking out. The _Blacks_? Everyone who had ever _been born_ knew that the entire family was bad news in bold font with several exclamation points afterwards. What the hell were my parents thinking—giving me to these people?

"Ah, boys, come here." I quickly dipped my head to hide my face as I heard footsteps behind me. "Lovely of you to join us, Sirius." He added. "Although putting your tie on correctly would have been nice. Making a good impression on your fiancée is a bit hard when you look like a delinquent."

"They picked me and not Regulus for her—they should see what they're getting." Sirius Black had a pleasant voice, deep and smooth. I really hoped that his face would match because he was shaking out to be quite attractive if it did. Mother _had_ said he was handsome and she was usually a good judge of men—at least physically; the jury was still out on if she had judged his character correctly.

"He's not wrong. It's good to finally meet you, Sirius." Father said and I removed my hand from his right arm so he could shake my fiancé's hand. "We've heard a lot about you."

"And I've heard nothing about you." Okay, that was fair.

"My name is Charles Bennett. This is my wife, Emily, my son, Nathan, and my daughter, Eloise." He said.

"Slytherin green. Great." I heard him say. I was quite confused until I remembered that my cloak was green. Well this was off to a _great_ start.

"Sirius Orion!" Lady Black scolded. " _You're_ the one that broke family tradition—not us." The Blacks were all Slytherins then: not a shock. I wondered where Sirius Black had been placed, if not in Slytherin. Ravenclaw maybe?

"It's fine—we all have our opinions. It's not Slytherin green intentionally—I was a Ravenclaw, my wife was a Hufflepuff, and neither of our children attended Hogwarts themselves. We haven't had a Slytherin in either of our families in a long time." Father said. "Eloise, you can take your cloak off now—especially considering that it isn't your fiancé's favorite color." The last part was barely concealing laughter. I reached up and untied the string around my throat before letting the hood drop, the cloak sliding off my shoulders. Father took it from me quickly and handed it to Nate. "Eloise, this is Sirius Black." He added. I looked at him, not really knowing what to do—all of my mother's advice and about everything she had ever said about meeting people flying out my head.

"It's good to meet you." I said, studying him curiously. My, he was handsome. His brother wasn't _nearly_ as good-looking. Mother had totally picked the hot one for me. She had been right about the eyes—he had nice eyes, although they didn't look very friendly at the moment. His father had been right about the clothes. He looked a bit more disheveled than everyone else there and his tie was definitely crooked. Everyone looked at him, waiting for him to say something to me—anything.

"You too." He said shortly. Not like I could blame him. He was engaged to as much of a stranger as I was. I jumped as there was a small pop behind me. I turned to see that it was the house elf. We didn't have one and their spontaneous appearances and disappearances always threw me when I was around them.

"Tea is ready in the drawing room, Mistress." He said and vanished again.

"Sirius, please show Eloise to the drawing room. We'll be along. Regulus, chaperone them." Lord Black said to his sons, clearly hoping to encourage conversation. Why he was bothering with a chaperone was beyond me—I doubted Sirius Black and I were going to be jumping each other's bones. Sirius nodded once and offered me his arm, which I quietly took. I saw the younger brother following us a few paces behind.

"You have a lovely home." I lied, looking around the hallway.

"No I don't." He said flatly.

"No…you don't." I admitted. "I was just trying to be nice."

"So you _don't_ like my house?"

"The wallpaper is hideous." I said, motioning to the walls in the dining room as we walked by.

"My aunt told my mother that wallpaper was very in fashion about ten years ago and she papered the entire fucking place." He said. I was surprised that he was ballsy enough to curse in front of a lady. I think it showed because he raised an eyebrow. "What? Too much for your delicate ears?" I ignored the tone.

"No, but I think you might give my mother a stroke if you say that in front of her. I rather like her so if you wouldn't mind _not_ doing that, that would be brilliant."

"You like her?"

"Of course. She and my father are good parents—they love each other and they love my brother and I. They want what's best for me and do what they can within reason." I said neutrally.

"So much that they set you up with a bloke you've never met?"

"I said 'within reason', didn't I? They're liberal for Purebloods, but that's still not very liberal."

"Fair enough." He murmured. "This is the drawing room." I looked around. It was just as dreary as the rest of the place.

"I like your bookshelves." I said, looking over at them.

"You read?" He asked skeptically.

"Well, I _did_ graduate school recently—you need to read for that, it turns out." I said, taking a seat on the nearest sofa. He looked surprised as he sat in an armchair. I saw Regulus lingering near the doorway in my peripheral vision.

"You went to school? I would've thought that Mommy and Daddy would've homeschooled a delicate little thing like you." He asked, sounding sarcastic at the end. I patiently ignored that as well and nodded.

"I just finished my schooling at Beauxbatons last May." I said. "I was quite sad to see it go, but I suppose that I was out of things for them to teach me."

"Beauxbatons?" I nodded. "You're clearly English—so why not Hogwarts? Your father said that he and your mother attended."

"My parents have no interest in the blood feud going on in England. When I was a young child they moved our family to Italy so my brother and I could grow up away the war they saw on the horizon. By the time Nate turned eleven, the war was starting up so they sent him to Ilvermorny in the States. I turned eleven a couple years later and they sent me to Beauxbatons." He seemed interested.

"They're not Voldemort's?" He asked.

"No, they just don't really…they don't think it's worth worrying about; I come from a family of pacifists. I took Studies of Non-Magical Cultures when I was at school and found it quite interesting, actually." I said. "Then, to be fair, I took everything." I added after a moment.

"We call it Muggle Studies—at Hogwarts, I mean." Sirius said. I nodded politely. It was certainly more to the point. "When you say you took everything…?"

"I mean I took everything—all of the core classes plus Alchemy, Voice, Art Studio, and Fabrics and Fibers." I said. "Totaled up to…twelve classes." He raised an eyebrow.

"And you passed all of them?" I nodded.

"I wouldn't have taken them if I didn't think I'd pass. I struggled a bit with…what do you call it at Hogwarts? Herbology?" I asked. He nodded. "Well, let's just say no one lets me near the tulips Mother grows on the front porch, lest I breathe too close to them." I swear to Merlin he almost smiled, but Regulus loudly cleared his throat, drawing attention to the fact our families were walking in behind me. Everyone looked at him.

"Sorry, dry throat." He mumbled.

"Sirius, sit with Eloise—you need to spend time with each other and I'm sure your brothers would like to take the armchairs." Lady Black said, giving Sirius no choice but to sit next to me as everyone settled in for tea. "Honestly, the children will be stunning." She said as another house elf appeared, making me jump again. This one looked friendlier—and much younger. "Mipsy, where is Kreacher?"

"Kreacher is watching dinner—he is better at making the puddings than Mipsy is and Mipsy and Kreacher want to make the best food, especially for such important guests." She said. Unlike Kreacher, she was actually quite cute, with big eyes and huge ears.

"Of course. Well, serve us all tea." Lord Black said dismissively to the elf. "And so you know, it's not your place to decide who is or isn't important. Don't presume to make that mistake again."

"Of course, Master. Mipsy is very sorry, Master." The elf squeaked and handed me a cup of tea. "Do you take milk or sugar, Miss?" She asked.

"A touch of milk would be lovely, thank you." I said quietly as everyone around me talked. She smiled at me brightly snapping her fingers, milk appearing in the tea. "Thank you. It smells wonderful." She smiled again hugely before handing tea to my mother.

"Eloise, your mother says that you're one for embroidery?" Lady Black asked. I took a moment to swallow my tea and nodded.

"I think I'm rather good at it, but producing anything worthwhile takes longer than it probably should." I said.

"Eloise is a perfectionist. I saw her undo almost an entire blanket once because there was a mistake she didn't notice earlier." My mother said. "She's quite talented, at the top of her art classes in school." Everyone looked at me.

"It's just a pastime, really." I said softly, sipping my tea.

"No way—you're brilliant—you can draw things on the corners of napkins that'd take me like year to do." Nate said. Mother looked at him pointedly, silently telling him to watch his mouth and his informalities. "Sorry." He added quietly. "Wonderful tea." He said, filling the silence.

"Thank you, Nathan." I said. "As flattering as that is, it's still just a pastime. Lady Black, I was just asking about the lovely wallpaper in the hall—where did you get the idea for it? I've never seen anything like it before." I added, trying to move conversation along. I could have sworn I heard Sirius snort and try to turn it into a cough. Everyone looked at him.

"Sorry. Dry throat. Maybe something's going around." He gestured to Regulus and himself. "Please continue."

"Well, Orion's sister, Druella, told me about a decade ago that it was very on trend at the time. Of course ladies of society such as ourselves have to remain privy to such things, so I had the elves hang wallpaper about the house."

"Of course." I said. "I wasn't aware that it was a trend recently, but I was only a child at that time." I said with a smile. "I'm not quite sure what the fashionable thing to do is right now though…Mother, do you know?" I asked, passing conversation off to my mother so I could sit and watch for a while.

"Do you have any other pastimes, Eloise?" Lady Black asked suddenly.

"A few. I play a bit of piano and enjoy dancing—although dance has fallen to the side ever since I graduated school in June." I said automatically. "My heart is really in painting, drawing, and sewing though." The woman nodded approvingly. Those were all feminine (safe) things—there wouldn't have been an approving nod if I had preferred to go rock-climbing or something.

"You'll have to show us some of your drawings one day." Lady Black said, clearly wondering if I was any good. Honestly? I wasn't really sure.

"Maybe when I draw anything worth showing anyone." I said just as Kreacher popped into the room, making me jump (again). Bloody house elves.

"Dinner is ready in the dining room, Mistress." He said, bowing deeply.

"Make sure that nothing goes cold this time, won't you?" Lord Black asked. I raised an eyebrow. _Seriously?_ They slave over your dinner and that's what you have to say? I didn't say that out loud of course—I like my head on my shoulders, thanks.

"Of course, Master." He said and vanished with a pop.

"Well, shall we see what the elves managed to come up with?" Mother asked, standing up, making all the men there stand as a courtesy. "Come, Eloise—help your mother to the dining room." I walked over to my mother and took her arm as everyone started to walk out of the drawing room. We just kind of followed them as neither of us knew where we were going. "So?" She whispered.

"So, we're strangers. I don't know what to say to him and he clearly doesn't know what to say to me." I whispered back.

"He's quite cute though, isn't he?" She whispered with a small smile. I bit back and smile of my own and nodded a bit.

"Quite." I said, wondering if anyone was listening.

"It will be easier soon, darling—it was hard for your father and I at first as well." She said and patted my cheek before thanking my father for pulling her seat out for her. I ended up sitting directly across from Sirius, between my father and brother. We were both making heroic efforts not to make eye contact.

"When will Sirius and Eloise be married, Mother?" Regulus asked. I looked over at him and tried dearly to hide my surprise at the question. That was something (oddly) that hadn't even crossed my mind.

"What date did we decide on, Charles?" Orion said, answering for his wife. "The twelfth?"

"Tenth." Father said. I raised an eyebrow. It was the seventh now.

"Of _July_?" Sirius asked, beating me to the question. "You don't mean in three days, right?" He asked. I was just as taken aback as he was. I looked over at my mother, shocked. She shook her head a bit, telling me not to open my mouth.

"Yes, Sirius—of July. You and Eloise will be married in three days and will be sent on a two-week-long honeymoon while your mothers find somewhere suitable for you to live and to raise a family in." Orion said. I looked over at my parents.

"How exactly can anyone get a wedding together in three _days_?" I asked, wondering how that was logistically possible even with magic.

"There's no need for one of those silly weddings. You'll go to the Ministry to be wed like we all did. Your families will be there and no one else." My father said. "From there you will leave to a destination that your mother and I have picked and you will remain there for two weeks."

"You don't need to wear a white dress, Eloise." My mother told me gently—knowing what I was thinking. I'd want to wear a white dress if I was marrying someone I loved and not a total stranger.

But I wasn't. I was marrying a total stranger and so I didn't want to wear a white dress.

As cute as he was, I didn't love Sirius Black.

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 _Also, the chapters will be in alternating timelines. One starting in 1978 and one in 1996 so we'll be seeing these two at very different parts of their lives._

 _Guesses on where they'll be in 18 years?_

 _Review and guess!_


	2. The Bad Husband

_Wow, you guys! The first chapter has only been up about 24 hours and I've gotten such positive feedback!_

 _So, here's a look at 1996 (sorry to the person that hoped they'd be out of Ministry jurisdiction)._

 _Read and Review!_

 _Love, Essie_

* * *

 _Sirius, 1996_

The fact I was alive was a pure stroke of luck. I had been all of one foot off from falling through that stupid veil and to what I assumed would be certain death, as there were a disconcerting number of invisible voices that sounded too much like people I'd seen die coming through it.

Still, that didn't mean I was looking forward to this trial that Dumbledore had somehow managed to squeeze out of the Ministry.

"Really?" I asked Kingsley as he put me in a chair, magic shackles springing to life. He shrugged in the empty room. The Wizengamot and all of the various people here to watch and/or stand witness had yet to enter.

"Sorry, mate. You're an accused murderer. It's protocol." He said with a shrug. "Be glad Dumbledore talked Fudge out of putting you in a cage." I scowled at him. "Seriously. Now, everyone's due to come in, but before that happens, the prosecution called someone as a character witness. She's a proverbial wild card."

" _She?_ Please don't tell me it was one of my girlfriends from school. If it's one of them, I'm fucked." I said, trying to think of who it could be.

"Not exactly. He called your wife as a character witness. Eloise, isn't it?" I felt my mouth drop open. "Nice of you to tell us all that you're married, by the way."

"Ellie? He called _Ellie_?" I said before I thought about it. " _And she agreed_?"

"Fudge threatened to take her British citizenship away if she didn't. No one's sure what she's going to say, so just prepare yourself." He said. I nodded a bit just as the doors opened the people started streaming into the stands. "I'll be over here. One more thing: she Flooed the Ministry an hour or so ago. Says that she's bringing someone—something about a woman named Margot." I felt my stomach drop.

"Thanks, Shacklebolt." I muttered as he headed away to take his seat in the stands. I looked around to see the Wizengamot fully seated and staring at me reproachfully.

"Bring in any witnesses and allow the public to enter." Fudge said. People continued to walk in, most of them strangers—likely the public. Remus, Harry, Albus, Minerva, Ron, and Hermione were also among the people entering. No Ellie.

Then I laid eyes on her.

At first I thought it was Ellie, but the wide-eyed curiosity on her face said it wasn't. This must be Margot. Sure enough, Ellie appeared beside her and pushed her towards the stands gently. I tried to listen with Padfoot's ears to catch their voices.

"…Don't get your hopes up, mon canard—you know what the outcome could be." Ellie was saying softly as they sat down. Mon canard. My duck. Huh. Cute.

"I know, Maman—that's why I came today. I wanted to see him for myself just once. In case I don't get a chance ever again. Besides, I know this is hard for you and I didn't want you to come alone." Margot had a soft and gentle voice—one like Ellie's but self-assured. She also appeared to be deeply connected and bonded to her mother, judging by how she had said she was here to support her mother.

"Well, thank you Ducky. Still, you need to be ready for anything." Ellie told her gently, putting a hand on her arm just as Fudge walked in and called for everyone to be quiet. Everyone hushed and attention redirected to where I was sitting in the middle of the room on my own.

"We are gathered here today to try Sirius Orion Black III on the charges of conspiring with Death Eaters, the attempted murder of Harry James Potter, and the murder of twelve muggles, Peter Pettigrew, and Lily and James Potter. Not to mention your escape from Azkaban." Holy shit if I got out of all of those, it'd be a bloody miracle. "How do you plead?"

"Not guilty, Minister." I said. There were whispers from around the room. I wasn't terribly surprised. My family had a reputation of being extremely proud of their crimes. Supposedly Bellatrix had done nothing but brag about being _so_ trusted by Voldemort during her own trial. Fudge called for silence again, banging a gavel twice to further emphasize his point. Silence overtook the room again.

"As there are quite a few charges to get through, let's start at the beginning. Why aren't you guilty of conspiring with Death Eaters?" Amelia Bones asked, clearly interested. Well, at least she was fair and not a lunatic driven by fear like Fudge was—the fucking moron. Despite her being fair, what kind of question was that?

"Because I haven't? I fought against Death Eaters in the war. You're free to ask Albus and Alastor Moody both—I fought alongside them both plenty of times." I said. Amelia wrote something down. "I wanted nothing to do with their blood supremacy even when I was a child—I'm sure if you could track down Bellatrix, she'd be more than happy to call me a blood-traitor for you." Amelia wrote something else down.

"And the attempted murder of Harry Potter?"

"That ties in with the rest of my charges, if you won't mind me addressing them all at once." I said, not knowing how to isolate how I didn't try to kill Harry from everything else. Amelia waved a hand as a go ahead. I gave the story of the Secret Keeper cluster-fuck and Peter's betrayal and how James had intentionally lied to Dumbledore so literally no one would know who the Secret Keeper was as the man became warier and warier of everyone who wasn't a friend.

"See, I wanted to kill Peter Pettigrew—Merlin, I wanted to—but I didn't. I never even hexed him that day." I said. Right, time to get out with the Animagus secret—at least on Peter's part. I glanced over at Remus, whose werewolf secret would be coming out as well. He shook his head a bit. I knew what he was saying. Don't hold anything back. Maybe I should start taking the bloke's advice. So, I told all of them about how James, Peter, and I had become illegal Animagi at fifteen to help Remus, how that allowed Peter to cut his finger off and escape in the sewers as a rat.

I couldn't tell if anyone was convinced, but at the very least, everyone there looked extremely interested. Just as I ran out of things to say, Albus swept into the room with a pleasant smile.

"Dumbledore?" Fudge asked incredulously.

"Indeed. I'd like to testify, if that's agreeable to everyone." Dumbledore said. Everyone looked exchanged looks. He had just waltzed into a trial like he owned it.

"Black, are you agreeable?" Amelia asked.

"Uh, sure." I said, not ready to decline help from Dumbledore.

"Very well, Albus." She said, waving a hand. Dumbledore gave an account of my time in the first and current war against Voldemort with an eerily consistent smile on his face the entire time. He also added that I had busted out of Azkaban because I didn't fancy Peter Pettigrew murdering my Godson and that didn't sound like a man that tried to kill Harry Potter, now does it?

Once Dumbledore finished up his testimony, everyone looked back at me and Amelia asked if there was anything else I wanted to say.

"Not really. Either you believe me or not—everyone else who knows the truth is dead." I said.

"Very well. Now, the Wizengamot has requested a character witness of their own." Fudge said, looking very victorious. Oh no. I glanced over at Ellie, who was being directed to the testimony chair. "For the record, I'll be asking the questions." Ellie sat down and looked over at the Minister patiently, like she was waiting for a small child to ask her questions. "State your name for the court."

"Eloise Black." This was the first time I heard her speak in almost fifteen years. I hadn't realized how much I had missed her.

"And your relation to the accused."

"He's my husband." There were several gasps and murmurs from around the room. Okay, so the fact I was married wasn't a very widely distributed memo.

"Can you tell me about your marriage?"

"It's been nonexistent for the last fourteen years or so." Ellie said dryly.

"Before then, how would you say your husband acted in the months leading up to the deaths of Lily and James Potter?"

"I don't know. We had been separated for over six months by the time they were killed. We weren't even living in the same country."

"So it was an unhappy marriage?"

"It was an arranged marriage. Our time together neither started nor ended happily, I'm afraid." She said softly, eyes averting from Fudge.

"And who would you say was the more responsible party for this unhappiness?"

"At times him, at times me—it varied. We resented each other because we had no choice in our marriage."

"And you never divorced?"

"The marriage arrangement didn't allow for it." Ellie said simply. "Our parents made sure that 'for life' meant for _life_."

"I see. So overall, you'd classify Sirius Black as a poor spouse?" I raised an eyebrow. Wasn't that leading the witness or something?

"He's not on trial for being a bad husband, Minister. Fortunately for him." Ellie said, making a few people suppress smirks. Great. "Sirius wasn't a particularly great husband all the time, but we weren't completely miserable all the time."

"Would you explain what led to your separation?"

"We were living in Paris during the war for my job and when I was about seven months pregnant, Sirius wanted to return to England to aid the war efforts against Voldemort. I said that I was under no circumstances moving back to a war zone pregnant—that our daughter's safety came before my personal happiness or his moral compass. I told him that if he returned to England, he'd be doing it without me—and without our baby. So he did and that was the last time I saw him." Ellie said evenly.

There were a few murmurs and no one asked her anything for a moment, women in the crowd exchanging looks and clearly judging me for leaving my pregnant wife alone in another country. It admittedly wasn't my best moment.

"And did he provide any…assistance?" Fudge asked. Ellie raised an eyebrow, clearly asking for clarification. "Did he send money or any other forms of assistance to help raise your daughter in his absence?" He added.

"No." Ellie said simply. "He left and took the Black family fortune and our house elf with him."

"So, just for clarification, one more question." Ellie raised an eyebrow. "Has he ever met your daughter—Margot, isn't it?"

"No, from what I understand he came looking for us when she was about four months old but we had already moved from our old home and I wasn't aware of that until after he had been arrested and it was too late for me to try to locate him."

"Thank you, Eloise—please retake your seat." Fudge said. Great. That sounded just peachy. Things weren't looking good for the home team.

"Minister, if you don't mind, I'd like to ask Eloise a few questions myself." Albus interrupted. "If Sirius will permit me to." He added looking over at me. I nodded, just going with Dumbledore on this.

"Very well, Albus." Fudge sighed. "Get on with it." Dumbledore looked over at Eloise, who didn't seem to be bothered by the world's most powerful wizard scrutinizing her over his glasses. She just seemed pleasantly interested.

"I only have one question, Eloise." I raised an eyebrow, as did several other people. "Do you think your husband is guilty? From what you know of him, do you think he's capable of what he's been accused of?" Ellie seemed surprised by the question and silence fell for a moment.

"I think that my husband can be careless and selfish and extremely irresponsible. He was prone to outbursts when he was upset and hardly ever thought about the future." Well that was lovely—thanks Ellie. "Yes, he was a shit husband a lot of the time we were married and yes, he abandoned our daughter before she was even born, but I don't think he betrayed the Potters and I don't think he killed all those people." Ellie said. People exchanged looks. "He's a terrible father for what he did to Margot, but he's not a terrible person and he's not a murderer—at least not the man I knew fifteen years ago. Our daughter is a wonderful, kind, and clever girl—she couldn't be the person she is today if her father, present in her life or not, is the monster he's accused of being." Well she wasn't wrong about the shit father bit. If you looked up "shit father" in the dictionary, I'd likely be there.

"So you don't think he's guilty?" Dumbledore asked.

"No, I don't think he's guilty." She repeated back to him.

"That's all Eloise, thank you." She nodded once and rejoined the rest of the witnesses in the stands. There were a few whispers that sounded less than flattering. To be fair, my marriage wasn't my crowning achievement—and neither was my parenting track record. It appeared the prosecution was having a chat.

I looked over at where Ellie was sitting next to whom I had correctly assumed to be Margot. They were talking softly in French, far too rapidly for me to understand—I had been shaky at best when I had lived in Paris and time had done nothing to aid my understanding of the language. I didn't have a prayer of deciphering anything they were saying. Margot looked so like Ellie—it was startling, actually. Ellie bent down to presumably fiddle with her shoe or get something out of her purse and suddenly, Margot looked right at me with her curious eyes when her mother wasn't looking. Was I supposed to smile? She didn't look overjoyed to see me or anything. I definitely couldn't wave, as I was still chained to this stupid chair. She smiled a bit shyly before immediately looking away and focusing her attention back on her mother, who was still bent down.

Just as Ellie sat up, Fudge cleared his throat loudly.

"The prosecution would like to request another character witness." People groaned. Jesus Christ, _another_ day of trial? That's what would have to happen—it took time to track people down. "Margot Black." I felt my mouth drop open. People in the Wizengamot exchanged looks. What was the point? She'd never met me. I looked over at Margot, who looked shocked. Ellie said something to her quietly amid the whispers, in French. Margot visibly said something back, looking quite pale. "Come, Miss Black. Only a few questions."

" _Absolutely_ not." Ellie said to the Minister. "She's not of age yet and I'm her mother. I say no."

"Mrs. Black—"

"You have no substantial reason to call her to testify—they've never even _met_. You're not traumatizing my child for no reason except because it makes you feel powerful to push people around, Minister." Ellie snapped, standing up. "Don't you lot have something _other_ than a trial that could be over in two seconds with a drop of Veritaserum to be worried about? You know, that bloke that looks like a snake and likes to run around and kill people? Goes by Lord Voldemort? Remember him?" People gasped at the name. "I understand that the Ministry likes to put on a show to distract everyone from what's actually important in the world, but you're not putting my daughter at the center of your bloody circus."

"Eloise is right, Minister. Do you have definitive grounds to call Margot to testify other than to establish that she's never met her father—something we've already established from her mother's testimony?" Dumbledore asked calmly from the side. Fudge pursed his lips.

"I wish to ask her about her childhood." He said.

"A childhood her father was absent during. You have no substantial evidence unless you're not sharing something." Ellie snapped. She seemed ready to walk over and knock Fudge into next century for daring to involve her daughter. Fudge didn't say anything and Ellie nodded a little. "That's what I thought." She said and murmured something to Margot quietly, the girl standing up beside her mother. Without another word, both of them walked out of the courtroom, Ellie clearly not giving her daughter an option in this.

She hadn't been that aggressive last I saw her.

Apparently motherhood really _does_ change women.

I wasn't offended by her stance—or worried that it was going to get me killed. Nothing Margot could have said would change anything. She didn't know a thing about me except for what Ellie had told her—which I suspected wasn't much.

"While we're on the topic however, I'd like to explore the option of Veritaserum." Dumbledore added pleasantly.

"Excuse me?" I asked, not thinking about it. "We're exploring that? Really?"

"Your wife was correct, Sirius—this could be easily resolved if you are forced to speak the truth for a period of time." Dumbledore said. "If it would be agreeable to both the Wizengamot and yourself, I'd like to pursue it as an option to keep the trial from going into next week as that sounds most unpleasant." Everyone exchanged looks.

"All in favor?" Fudge asked the Wizengamot. Almost every hand went up. "Black, do you consent?" I glanced over at Dumbledore, who almost invisibly nodded.

"Uh, yeah. No one's going to believe anything that comes out of my mouth otherwise." I said.

"We will have to obtain approved Veritaserum to administer so the trial is adjourned for the day. We will all reconvene at eight, tomorrow morning. Shacklebolt, put him back into Ministry custody for the night." Fudge said and Kingsley nodded. "Thank you everyone, I'll see you all tomorrow." With that, people got up and started to file out. I saw Dumbledore and Minerva push Harry and everyone else I recognized from the courtroom until it was just Kingsley and a couple of his Auror mates left in the room.

"And where's my home for tonight?" I asked them dryly.

"Holding cell here. Overnight trips to Azkaban are expensive and it's not like the place can hold you anyways." One of the blokes said. "Move too fast and you'll regret it." Kingsley rolled his eyes.

"Mate, I'm sure he knows—just let him up so we can cuff him and get him to a cell for the night." He said and waved his wand, the shackles falling off and being almost immediately replaced with handcuffs.

"Come on, you've got some new clothes waiting for you." One of them said and shoved me towards the door.

* * *

 _See you guys back in '78 next chapter!_


	3. The Unpleasant Beginning

_Still overwhelmed by the positive responses I've gotten on this! Thank you all so much and I'm so glad so many of you like the alternating timelines (I almost didn't do it that way, to be honest)!_

 _Read and Review!_

 _Love, Essie_

* * *

 _Sirius, 1978_

"Two days, mate!" I said to Prongs through the mirror the night after I had met the Bennett family. "I'll be stuck with this woman in two bloody days."

" _Pads, you know that you're the one that decided to go through with this."_ James pointed out.

"Well I don't want to be stuck relying on people for my independence all the time, yeah? I'd like to be able to live on my own." I lied, not mentioning the conversation I'd had with them not long ago: either marry the unnamed girl or we do the Imperious and you marry the unnamed girl anyways.

" _Well, you won't be living on your own, per say…"_ I scowled at him. _"Sorry. Well, tell me about her at least—you haven't said a thing about her and you're going to be spending the rest of your life together."_

"I don't know what you want me to say, Prongs. She's just a girl."

" _Well, what's her name?"_

"Her name's Eloise." James made a face. "I know. Mate, her face does _not_ match her name." I added and he raised an eyebrow, interested.

" _She's pretty? With a name like_ Eloise _?"_ He asked incredulously.

"I know. She's really pretty. I mean she's definitely holier-than-thou, but she's easy on the eyes." I said. "Imagine my surprise when she dropped the hood on her cloak. I was expecting a Bullstrode and that wasn't what I got—thankfully."

" _Yeah, that would've really made things worse."_ James agreed _. "Well at least you'll have a hot wife—even if you don't really like her. Is she really_ that _bad?"_

"She's…at the very least _seems_ like a pureblood housewife that's really looking forward to having kids—she actually looked disappointed that she doesn't get a big wedding." I said, thinking back to the fallen expression Eloise Bennett's face had expressed for only a heartbeat when her mother had said that there was no need for a white dress.

" _You know, wanting a big wedding doesn't make her evil."_

"Yeah, but how am I supposed to live with someone who wants something I despise?" I argued.

" _Who said she wants to marry_ you _? She might just want a big wedding in general."_ James countered. I shrugged. _"Well, let's look for positives. Does she seem like a Death Eater?"_

"No, her parents even moved their family out of the country to keep them from the war as soon as they caught a whiff of it—they lived in Italy and she attended Beauxbatons, brother went to Ilvermorny." I said. "Her parents aren't even Slytherin. Dad's a Ravenclaw and Mom's a Hufflepuff."

" _See? That's good. Is she about our age?"_

"Our age exactly. Eighteen."

" _Another good thing. You're not marrying a child or an old woman. Granted her name isn't the best."_ James said. _"Good luck managing to say her name during sex without cringing or thinking of naked grandmothers."_ I rolled my eyes.

"Thanks, James. I appreciate that." I said. "They really should have named her something else. It's…not a very pretty name. Well, I guess it is, but it's not…"

" _It's not young."_

"Not at all, but then who am I to talk? I was named after dead people." I said thoughtfully. There was a knock on the door.

"Sirius Black, go to bed! We're going out to look at houses tomorrow!" Dear old Mom. Someone I wouldn't miss living with.

"I'm going!" I shouted back. "I'll talk to you soon, yeah?"

" _Enjoy the wedding."_ James grinned before disconnecting. I shoved the mirror into my school trunk, where it was still packed (I was letting myself live in a delusion where I was leaving September first for Hogwarts).

* * *

"I thought you and Lady Bennett were picking houses out while we were gone." I said as I walked into the kitchen. My mother shrugged.

"We are, but we're taking you and Eloise out to look at some today—it was Lady Bennett's idea. She doesn't want her daughter to live somewhere she'll dislike. She pampers her daughter too much in my opinion." Lady Bennett's actions actually sounded quite reasonable to me, but I didn't mention it.

"Father isn't coming?"

"No, he and Regulus are out playing golf with the Minister this morning." She said. I'd never wanted to play golf more in my life than I did at that moment. "Come, we're meeting in Bath—Lady Bennett seems to think that would be a good place for your house." I took her arm and my mother Apparated us out of London.

"Ah, Emily." Mother said, kissing the cheek of Lady Bennett. "I'm glad we're all here."

I glanced over at Eloise, who was much more conservatively dressed than the night I had met her. She was in a dress that fell past her knees with a high neckline, sweater on top of that, unbuttoned with a belt around her waist. She was in very functional heels that were barely two inches tall and looked very much like oxfords. All of her curves were hidden now and she looked much more human than the girl that had pulled the hood of that cloak down, but she still looked ready to play Suzy Homemaker.

"Sirius, aren't you going to greet Lady Bennett and your fiancée?" My mother asked pointedly.

"Good to see you both." Yeah, not really. Emily Bennett smiled at me, but apparently Eloise didn't believe me as much as her mother because she had a look about her eyes that silently was calling me on that lie. Well, more power to her.

"You too." She said after a heartbeat of the silent look. "It's good to finally be able to talk without all of those stuffy dress robes and gowns getting in the way." She added warmly. I couldn't tell if she was lying. She was way smarter than she was letting on apparently because I was definitely the best liar in the Marauders and we were the best liars in Hogwarts. At least we _were_ before we graduated.

"Now, let's look around." Lady Bennett said, starting the day of house hunting.

" _How many_ bedrooms?" Eloise asked her mother as she looked at the flyer.

"Um, twelve."

"Oh, well we can use a new bedroom every night for almost a fortnight." Eloise said and apparently my mother missed the mild sarcasm because she smiled.

"That's true. It's quite grand, really." The place looked like it had crawled out of one of my nightmares. It was like a bigger version of Grimmauld Place.

"I hate it." Everyone looked over at Eloise in surprise, clearly having expected me to be the one to have such a strong opinion. "Sorry, but I do. I'm not living somewhere like this." She said firmly. "And I'm _certainly_ not raising children in a house that looks like an underfunded museum that's never seen a duster in its life."

"Eloise, maybe say that in a gentler fashion. Lady Black just said she liked it." Her mother said cautiously.

"It's not for me." Eloise said calmly. Both mothers looked over at me.

"Yeah, I hate it too." I said and my mother frowned at me. "What? She's right about the museum bit."

"Why don't we look at another?" Lady Bennett said. "Darling, you mentioned the bedrooms—are there too many?"

"For me, yes. Two people don't need thirteen bedrooms." She said. "I would think five would be plenty." That was fair. Five was a good number.

"It won't just be the two of you forever." Her mother pointed out.

"But we're also probably not going to have four children that each get their own room." Eloise seemed very unbothered by this entire conversation.

"I think five or six at the most would be fine. This is too big." I said and Eloise smiled a bit at me likely before she noticed she did it, as her face almost immediately schooled into a neutral look. "Also, I think I'd like to have somewhere to go outside that isn't the front door. Maybe a garden or something? Grass of some kind would be nice." I added slowly, realizing that I'd likely end up somewhere just like Grimmauld place if I never spoke up.

"That's a great idea." Eloise said. "Really, wonderful. I'd lose my mind if I never saw grass."

It was dinnertime by the time we got home from house hunting and our mother claimed that they had a handle on what we (mainly the bride-to-be) wanted and that they'd have somewhere perfect for us to move into when we came home from our honeymoon.

* * *

The morning of my wedding, I forgot it was the morning of my wedding.

Until Mipsy came in and presented me with a button-down shirt and some slacks, telling me to make sure my tie was on straight this time.

Then I remembered. Wedding. I was getting married.

Once I was dressed, I sat about my room, wondering what the fuck was going on with my life for hours on end. It was seven at night when my father knocked on my door, not waiting for me to tell him that he could come in.

"Father." I said, wondering why he hadn't sent one of the elves for me.

"Sirius, we need to have a talk before today." He said, sitting down at my desk chair. I sat on the foot of my bed, bothering to sit up for this. This was…odd. He was pretty hands-off with parenting—like _intensely_ hands-off.

"About what?" I asked warily. This conversation could go in any direction.

"About your wedding night." Oh, Merlin no. Please no. This was _not_ happening to me.

"I know what happens on people's wedding nights, Father." I said, hoping to avoid this. He nodded.

"I'd guessed that much, but we need to speak about it anyways. I know you're not a virgin, Sirius—I'm not a fool—but we need to talk about why you'll be having sex with this woman." Great. This wasn't weird or anything.

"Because you want grandkids." I said, just resigning myself to getting this conversation over with.

"In a sense, yes. We need heirs to the line and hopefully, it won't have to pass onto Regulus because you'll be blessed with sons. But that's not why we need to talk." I raised an eyebrow. "We need to talk about satisfying her."

"Oh, Merlin—can we _not_?"

"Exactly. Your mother and I were arranged—as were Eloise's parents—and we all went through this. Now, I'm going to give you some advice and I strongly suggest you take it." I raised an eyebrow. "Do not satisfy her on your wedding night. Have sex with her, of course, but don't…pleasure her." I blinked in surprise as I mentally cringed at hearing the word 'pleasure' come out of my father's mouth.

"That's generally the nice thing to do, you know."

"She doesn't love you anymore than you love her, but unlike men, most women won't be with a man unless they love them—yet you still need to have children _soon_. The way to circumvent this is continue to leave her unsatisfied sexually so she starts to yearn for satisfaction. She'll be more likely to agree to sex this way." I continued to inwardly cringe almost violently.

"So trick my wife into shagging me?"

"In a sense, I suppose. She knows it's her duty to you to have your children and Eloise seems like a well-bred woman so there shouldn't be a problem with her protesting to that duty, but just keep that advice in mind." He said. "Get ready to leave—we're heading to the Ministry in an hour." I nodded and he left.

Well that entire conversation could be summed up in the word 'ew'.

Sure enough, an hour later, we all Apparated to the Ministry and it appeared that we had beaten the Bennett family here, as it was just us (and the bloke from the Wizengamot) there.

"Ah, you must be the bride!" The Wizengamot man said, looking past Regulus and me with a smile. We both turned around to see Eloise walking in beside Lady Bennett, her father and brother just behind them. She was in a light blue dress that went to her knees. Her dark hair was up in a bun and her lips were red. Of course the dress had a high neckline and straps. Modesty seemed to be the name of the game with her.

"That's me." She said softly, walking over to where he was standing with me. "I'm sorry we're late—we got turned around up on the second floor." The man waved a hand.

"You're only two minutes late—think nothing of it! Now, I need to go have a quick chat with the guests about who's going to be the official witnesses and I'll be back in a moment." He said, leaving us standing there and staring at each other.

"Your tie's straight this time." She seemed to blurt out at me, her cheeks darkening a shade. Guess the pink cheeks were natural then. "Sorry. That wasn't appropriate."

"You're right." Her eyes obviously widened at being told she wasn't being appropriate. "My tie's painfully straight right now." I added and she relaxed slightly before biting her bottom lip slightly.

"I know this is going to sound really stupid, but what do I call you?" I blinked in surprise before realizing that wasn't a stupid question at all. It was actually a very good one—and a _very_ loaded one if you were talking to the right people. "I know we're all supposed to use titles with the old families, but…I don't know if we know each other enough to be on a first-name basis. We've only met…three times now." She added softly. "I thought it would be better to ask now than accidentally cross a line or something later."

"You can call me by my first name. I've never fancied the lord thing anyways." I said with a small smile. She smiled back at me reflexively before it vanished. I had yet to see her smile and really mean it—let alone hear her laugh. "And what do I call you?" I asked, knowing that her opinion didn't technically count. I could call her whatever I wanted as I was her husband. I could call her 'whore' instead of her name all day long and while it wouldn't be considered very respectful, it wouldn't be commented upon in Pureblood society. It would just be assumed she had done something to deserve it and that was that.

"You know the answer to that." She said softly, clearly thinking the same thing I was. "Call me whatever you'd like to." I opened my mouth to respond, but was cut off by the Wizengamot man, calling us both over and joining our hands before launching into his marriage speech. I honestly could barely recall a word of it until we got to the "I do's" and the rings.

"You may now kiss the bride." The bloke announced happily, clearly not realizing that we were here because we had to be. Eloise looked at me expectantly; actually everyone was. Right. I bent down a bit (she was average height but I was 6 foot 3 so there was still a decent height difference) and kissed her lips just long enough to be considered socially acceptable. "I now pronounce you man and wife!" As soon as they words were out of his mouth, our relatives were pushing a portkey onto us, telling us to hold on. We both took the shoe, exchanging looks as Lord Bennett tapped it with his wand. It glowed blue and we left the place we had gotten married in.

"Um, where are we?" I asked, looking around the sitting room for a window. Eloise looked around as well, standing up from where she had landed on her ass.

"Erm, this looks like France." She said, locating a window before I did. "I think it's Nice, but I'm not sure. I've only been a couple times, but it looks a lot like Nice. Granted it's dark out, so I might be totally wrong." I remembered she had gone to Beauxbatons and my panic at not knowing French eased a bit.

"You know French, right?" I asked and she nodded.

"Of course. All of my schooling was in French." She said, looking around. "Ah, I see someone was nice enough to pack for us." She added, nodding towards the suitcases by the door. I waved my wand and sent them to the bedroom, to be put in closets as I yawned. "I suppose we should find the bedroom." She said softly.

"Yeah, suppose so. It's getting quite late." I commented as we walked through the small (what appeared to be) hotel suite. We eventually located the bedroom. It was nice. A big bed that looked temptingly comfortable. "I'm going to get a drink—do you want one?" I asked, nodding to the bottle of wine nearby. Bless the French.

"I don't drink." She said quietly. I shrugged.

"Suit yourself." I said and poured a glass out for myself after magicking the cork out. I turned around with my glass to see that Eloise was staring at me from next to the bed, eyes suddenly glittering with tears. "Everything okay? Well, relatively." She nodded a little and turned around. I noticed that there was a bow on the back of her dress. It was actually really cute—innocent almost, despite the skin poking out between where the straps were crisscrossing her shoulder blades, the bow at the meeting point of them.

I watched her start to unzip her dress and realized what she was doing—and likely why she had been crying. She didn't want this and was probably scared of what kind of man she might've just married. She had pulled one of her arms out of the dress when I heard the barely audible sniffling. And there's my moral compass—in case I had misplaced it recently.

"Eloise." She paused. "Will you look at me?" She turned around to look at me, the dress hanging off her frame, held up by a strap and a hand. Her eyes were obviously dying to let the tears fall. "Are you a virgin?" She nodded a little. "Put your dress back on."

"Wha—am I really _that_ horrible?" She asked, looking hurt and shocked. "I know you didn't exactly pick me to spend your life with, but I thought you'd at least like me enough to have sex." She added, wiping her eyes with the hand not holding up half her dress.

"Put the dress back on and we'll talk. All the sideboob is distracting." I said, nodding to where her dress had partially slipped to reveal part of her left breast. She slipped her arm back into the dress and zipped it up, clearly waiting for an explanation. "I'm not going to take your virginity or share a bed with you until you ask me to." She blinked in surprise.

"Why?"

"Because I like to think I'm better than my own father and it's time I proved it." I said quietly. "Go ahead and change clothes. I'll use the bathroom." I grabbed a t-shirt from my suitcase and tracked down the bathroom, closing the bedroom door behind me. I knocked on the door once I was in boxers and the t-shirt. "Can I come in? I just need to get rid of these clothes." The door opened to reveal Eloise in pajama shorts and a baggy tank top. This was by far the most of her I'd ever seen. She had a lovely figure. I tossed the clothes back into my suitcase. "I'll take the sofa." I said. She reached out and caught my arm as I turned to leave. I turned to look at her, interested in what she needed to say so badly.

"Thank you." She whispered. I nodded a little and closed the door behind me.

Due to the lack of sex, our honeymoon was distinctly boring—not to mention that it appeared that Eloise was a bit introverted and preferred the company of books and paints than of people. Not to mention that she didn't drink, which completely killed the idea of getting a bit of wine in her to loosen her tongue.

"Hey, I think I'm going to head out and look around town for a bit." I said about three days after we'd gotten there. It was evening—just after dinner—and she was reading some book that had been left in the hotel suite we were staying in.

"Okay. Have fun." She said, looking up from her book with a little smile. That was the most I had been able to get out of her so far: little smiles that seemed to be more courtesy than anything else.

"Right. Enjoy your book." I said and headed towards the door, putting shoes on and leaving. Merlin, I needed a drink. I don't think I've ever needed a drink more, actually.

I headed down to a bar a few streets down and ordered a shot of whatever was strongest, the bartender mercifully speaking English.

"Excuse me?" Someone with a French accent said. I looked around to see a woman smiling at me. "You're English, no?"

"Yeah, I'm English. Why?"

"My friend—Brittany—thinks you're…uhm, I'm not sure what the word is…cute?" I nodded, silently telling her that was indeed a word. "She's too afraid to come talk to you though." I blinked in surprise and looked around for this elusive girl. "She's there. She's…yellow hair?"

"Blonde?"

"Yes, she's blonde." She said and pointed to a couple girls watching, one blonde and one brunette. Oh, she was hot too. I had missed blondes. My last girlfriend had been a redhead, but I had always loved blondes for some reason. Shame my wife was brunette. "Do you like her?" Hell yes, I liked her.

"Yeah. Let me pay for this drink and I'll be right over, okay?" She nodded and vanished back to her friends. I hastily paid and started walking over, barely remembering to shove my wedding band in my pocket. Okay, so this wasn't super ethical, but it's not like I was really cheating—we hadn't asked to be married or anything. Besides, she'd totally do the same thing in this situation.

"Brittany, right?" I asked the blonde, making her blush and nod. Oh, it was good to be back.

Brittany and I had a nice, long shag in the bathroom, starting with her sucking me off and ending with me fucking her against the stall door. I had missed sex dearly, but it was tragically time to head back to reality—and my virginal homemaking wife. I slid my wedding band back on as I approached the hotel and saw that there was an ambulance outside. Wow, someone's having a bad night—no one wanted to be carted off to the hospital at eleven at night.

"What's happening?" I asked the bloke behind the desk (everyone here spoke English—although they obviously preferred French).

"A woman was found unconscious and bleeding in one of the rooms. Two of our other guests heard her screaming for help through the door. Thank God the husband was a military man—he kicked the door right down to get to her." He said in his heavy French accent. "They've already moved her to the ambulance—they should be gone soon, sir." I nodded.

"That's awful—at least someone found her." I said and walked off, heading up to the fourth floor, completely ready for bed (although I was sleeping on the sofa, any sleep sounded wonderful). I hoped I didn't smell too much like Brittany—that was just a courtesy for Eloise—and pulled out my room key as I headed down the hallway. Shit, it looked like it was the people in the room across from us that had the emergency because there were people standing around near our door. "Excuse me." I muttered, forgetting that I was in France and correcting myself "Excusez-moi." I said, moving past one of the medics to get to my door. I paused when I realized it hadn't been the people across the hall at all. The door to our hotel room had clearly been kicked open. "What happened?" I asked one of the blokes nearby, yet again forgetting that we were in France.

"English?" He asked. I nodded.

"Yeah, I'm here with my wife." I said, forcing myself to say the W-word. I bloody hated the thing.

"She is very ill." He said in very slow English, clearly trying to think of the right words. "Come." I followed him back downstairs to the lobby and outside, towards the ambulance still outside with its lights flashing. The man I was following said something in French to the other people there and one of them opened the back doors of the ambulance. "Go see." He gestured for me to get in, which I did. Eloise was on a gurney, a bit of dried blood on her cheek coming from her mouth. She was very unconscious and there was a tube shoved down her throat, her mouth hanging open to accompany it. She looked like she could be dead if not for the rise and fall of her chest.

"What happened? I just saw her like three hours ago. She was fine." I asked the nearest person.

"Go with her, get translator at hospital. Only me speak English." The same bloke said. I nodded. "Sit." I sat on the bench seats next to Eloise's bed and soon, the ambulance pulled away from the curb as I wondered what had happened to her in those three hours.

* * *

 _So, what happened to poor Eloise? Well, you'll have to wait TWO chapters to find out!_

 _See you back in the 90s!_


	4. The Failing Father

_So, this is the first scene I wrote so I really like it and really hope it captures the characters of the canon characters (particularly Harry) and develops my new ones realistically._

 _Read and Review!_

 _Love, Essie_

* * *

 _Sirius, 1996_

"Sirius." I looked up to see Tonks standing outside my cell bars.

"Tonks. Radiant as always." I said looking up at her from where I was sitting on the ground of the cell I was in for the night. I'd sit on the bed if there were one. These clearly weren't technically meant for overnight stays, yet here I was. Back in prison clothes. "Here for a chat?"

"Not me." She said and unlocked the cell door. "Get up—sorry about the cuffs." She added and slapped them on my wrists as she led me down the hallway.

"Erm, where are we going?" I asked.

"There's someone here who wants to talk to you." She said and walked me into what looked like a visitation room—not like I'd ever seen the inside of one before. "Enjoy." I raised an eyebrow at her curiously as she left the room, locking the door behind her and leaving me handcuffed. Someone cleared their throat quietly, making me jump. I looked over at the table to see a teenager sitting there.

"Margot." I said without thinking. "Uh, how did you get here on your own?" I asked, realizing that she was just a child and couldn't Apparate yet.

"I didn't. Maman brought me here." She said, eyeing me. She had an English accent like her mother and I did, but there was a definite French lilt to it. I looked around the room to make sure I wasn't just missing Ellie in the room somewhere. "She's waiting outside with the Aurors on duty." She said, as if she was reading my mind. "I was."

"You were what?"

"Reading your mind." She said.

"How did—are you a Legilimens?" I asked, surprised.

"Mhm."

"Huh. What's that like?"

"Turns out you don't really want to know what people are thinking all the time." She said. I wondered how good she was, as I knew the talent was on a sliding scale of sorts—it was wide and varied in its efficacy and accuracy. "On a scale of 1-10, I'd give myself a six. Most people are only at one or two." She said, studying me. I got the feeling she was just seizing the opportunity to show off a bit.

"So why are you bothering to talk to me if you can just read my mind?"

"I wanted to meet you for myself. Besides, just because I can read your mind doesn't mean you can read mine and I thought it was time we finally got to talk. Maman said we could after the trial today, but we left before that." Margot said, studying me critically. My thoughts now felt very unsafe. How did Ellie live like this—with someone who could poke about her head whenever she wanted?

"Who's that?" Margot asked. "I don't know an Ellie, let alone live with one."

"I—I used to call your mom that, when we…well, before." I said. She nodded.

"Before you left us, you mean." She said. It wasn't accusing, just a statement.

"Yeah. Before I left you." I repeated slowly. "I'm assuming she goes by Eloise now?" Margot nodded.

"Some of my aunts call her Lulu. I've always known her as an Eloise though." She said. "Why did you call her Ellie?"

"Because I didn't like her first name—and neither did she, really." I said, not knowing what to say. "Can I ask you something?" She nodded. "If the Wizengamot were to vote right now…would I die?" She almost smiled.

"I don't know. There were too many people in the room. I can only handle one or two people at a time and they have to be close to me—geographically, that is. They can be strangers, but I have to be beside them." She said. "I'd acquit you, if I were them—if that's any kind of help."

"Yeah? Why's that? Last I checked, I'm the bloke that abandoned you and your mom before you were even born." I asked. She shrugged.

"Being a bad father doesn't warrant losing your soul. Anyways, Maman keeps Occlumency shields up around me a lot of the time. Apparently having someone constantly in your head is tiring." She added. Yeah, who knew that could be tiring? "You can sit down, you know. No one's going to stop you." I slowly sat down at the table across from her.

"Why are you visiting in the middle of the night?" I asked, noticing that the clock on the wall said it was almost midnight.

"Because there are fewer guards." She said simply. "They didn't just let us walk in here. Well, the woman that brought you in did, but the bloke she was with wasn't so nice." I raised an eyebrow. Did she…? "It's not blackmail if you promise not to tell anyone. People become much more interested in your interests as soon as you know something about them though."

"You blackmailed the guards?"

"I just told you: it's _not_ blackmail. Besides, Maman doesn't let me tell anyone that it's me—at least in England. She just lets everyone think that she's done a bit of snooping. Of course, all my friends at school know so it's not a secret except when we're here, which is never except to visit my auntie Mel." She said simply, clearly crossing her legs under the table.

"I'm assuming you go to Beauxbatons?"

"Obviously. I only _live_ in France—besides, it's where Maman went to school. She never said where you went though—only that it wasn't Beauxbatons like her, obviously you're not a girl, and not Ilvermorny like my uncle. I always assumed that you attended Durmstrang because of their reputation and the whole 'murder' thing." She said, looking like the fact she went to Beauxbatons should be stupidly obvious. It really kind of was, to be fair to her.

"How _is_ your uncle? It's been a long time since I've seen him."

"Dead. He was caught in a terrible fire without his wand when I was a small child. I didn't know him anyways." She said, not batting an eyelash. "It's just Maman and I—ever since I can remember. Supposedly _her_ maman helped her with me when I was a baby, but her and my grandfather both died before I could remember them."

"That's awful about Nate. Tell your mother I'm sorry, won't you?" She nodded a little, clearly out of things to say. There was an awkward silence.

"So where did you go to school?" She asked. "Not Durmstrang, judging by your face when I said that. Did you go to Hogwarts? Oh, you did! That's exciting. Maman told me I could go anywhere I wanted except for Hogwarts and Durmstrang. She said that people would know who I was at Hogwarts and only dark witches and wizards went to Durmstrang." Margot rambled.

"Your mom's a smart woman."

"I know she is. Does Hogwarts have houses like Ilvermorny does? We hosted an exchange student from Ilvermorny last year and she said they had houses. We don't—we're all supposed to be like one big family or whatever. It's like a Muggle sorority really—with _all_ the drama accompanying it."

"Hogwarts has four houses. Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff." I said, glad to have something to talk about. "As I understand it, Ilvermorny operates in a similar way with four houses." She nodded.

"My uncle was in Wampus, I think. What were you?"

"I was in Gryffindor."

"The brave." She said softly, studying me eerily intensely. "What are the other houses for?"

"Ravenclaw is wisdom, Hufflepuff is kindness, and Slytherin is cunning." I said, going for the mostly impartial and short version.

"Why do you hate Slytherin so much?" Margot asked before her eyes widened. "They have a rivalry with Gryffindor?" She was clearly reading my mind. "Oh, and you were supposed to be one. You were in disgrace for it—you weren't disowned because you were arranged to marry Maman, but they hated you, your whole family hated you." I raised an eyebrow at her. She cleared her throat. "Sorry. The sad thoughts are the hardest ones to block out. I'm getting much better though. I used to be impossible—blabbering strangers' secrets right to their faces. Maman had to wipe more than one memory because of it. I didn't think I needed to control it because I thought everyone was like me, that everyone could hear thoughts like I could—even now, it's hard; sometimes things just…slip out."

"It can't be easy."

"No, it's not. Maman always says that being special isn't easy—that anything that makes you exceptional is as much of a burden as it is a gift." Margot said. "I used to think she was lying to get me to stop blabbering about people's thoughts, but I'm starting to think she might be right. I hear all of these things, but there's nothing I can do about them. I can't tell the woman in line behind me in a coffee shop that her husband standing right next to her is cheating on her—I can't comfort the little kid beside me on the bus because his father doesn't love him and he knows it. I just have to listen—like I said: the sad thoughts are the hardest ones to ignore." She looked immensely sad at this, looking down at her hands and falling silent. "You're really sad, aren't you?"

"I'm more scared than anything else—I don't want to die or lose my soul tomorrow." I told her.

"But you're so _sad_ —I can hear it in your head. Do I make you sad, Papa?" She asked delicately. It took me a moment to realize that she was talking to me. The name had caught me off-guard. French for Dad or Daddy—the equivalent of Maman. It was the first time I had legitimately been called a father by anyone. She hadn't called me 'father' though—she hadn't been so distant. I wondered why. I'd never met this girl before in my life. "I've always wanted one." She said.

"Wanted what?"

"A dad. I wanted Maman to try to date and find a new man to love, but she always said that she was already married and 'for life' meant 'for life'." She said. "I didn't know until today that your marriage had been arranged, you know. She never told me—just that you were married and she couldn't break her vows. I didn't know she meant literally."

"Oh, uh, yeah. It was an arranged marriage and our parents padded that bit in. We can't divorce and if one of us dies, we can't remarry." I said.

"I know that now." She said. "I'm sorry I make you sad, Papa."

"Margot, you don't—"

"Are you _really_ going to attempt to lie to someone who can read minds?"

"You don't make me sad. The fact you're fifteen and this is the first conversation we've had—that makes me really sad."

"Fourteen."

"What?"

"I'm fourteen. You said fifteen."

"Of course. I forgot that you weren't the same age as Harry." I said and her eyes narrowed a little.

"Maman's thought about him before—even though she's never mentioned him to me. Harry Potter, isn't it? You left Maman and I for him, didn't you?"

"I left Paris to go fight the war, to help protect Harry and his parents. They were being hunted by Voldemort at the time." I said. "You see, he's my Godson."

"I know he is. You love him. You love him more than you love me _or_ Maman." _Now_ she sounded accusing—for the first time she seemed angry with me.

"Margot, that's not true. You—"

"You wouldn't have abandoned me and broken Maman's heart if it wasn't true." She snapped, standing up. "You would have put us before James Potter and his family." I blinked in surprise, although I probably shouldn't have been surprised. Of course she plucked James right out of my head. "Just admit you cared more for them—that you still do." She snapped.

"Margot, you're a Legilimens, I don't have to say anything for you to know the truth." I sighed, not knowing what else to say. She crossed her arms.

"I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you say that you don't love your wife and child as much as another man's child." She said. Well this wasn't like Ellie at all—she was sweet woman with a generally kind disposition. I realized with a jolt that this was exactly like _me_. "Just say it. We're both thinking it. If you get off tomorrow, you'll stay here to be a dad to Harry; you won't come to Paris to be a husband to your wife or a father to your daughter! You're just going to abandon us for _Harry Potter_ again!"

"Well _Harry_ isn't a stranger!" I shouted back before I could stop myself. I didn't miss the flash of hurt on her face before it vanished.

"That's no one's fault but your own." She said flatly, emotionlessly. "I hope you don't die tomorrow. It'd be a shame for Harry to lose you." She said and knocking on the door to be let out. Someone let her out and a moment later Tonks walked in the room, looking quite reproachful.

"What did you do?" She asked. "She just left in tears."

"I just saw her—she wasn't—"

"Come look. Be quiet." She said and pulled me up by an arm. She nodded around a corner, silently telling me to look around it. I peeked around the corner to see two embracing women about twenty feet away. It was Ellie and Margot. Margot was in her mother's arms and the sounds of her sniffles were audible.

"You were right. I shouldn't have come here. I shouldn't have tried to talk to him." I heard Margot whisper, just barely audible from so far away.

"I hoped I was wrong, mon canard. I really hoped that once he met you, he'd at least _try_." Ellie said as Margot continued to cry. Jesus Christ this was awful. "Do you want to talk about it?" Margot shook her head into her mother's shoulder. "Okay. How about we have that girls' date tomorrow that I've been promising you for ages now?" Margot nodded a bit and wrapped her arms around her mother tightly.

"Just us?" The girl mumbled.

"Of course, mon canard." Ellie said, rubbing her back.

"You're the only parent I need, Maman." Margot mumbled into her shoulder. "I love you so much."

"I love you too, Ducky—more than anything else in the world. Let's go back to Auntie Mel's for the night and get some sleep, okay?" Margot nodded as her mother took her arm and they vanished into thin air with a pop. I looked back over at Tonks, who looked pretty disgusted at the moment.

"Eloise was right today—it's a damn good thing you're not on trial for being a shitty husband and father." She walked me back to my cell without another word, the disdain hanging in the air, silent and disapproving.

* * *

"Hey, Harry." I said as Harry walked over to talk to me before the trial. I was already chained to the chair so I supposed no one was worried about me killing him or something.

"Hey. I noticed your…wife isn't here today. Eloise, wasn't it?" He asked. I nodded. "Your daughter too. Where'd they go?" I shrugged as much as the shackles would allow me to—which wasn't much.

"Back to France, I suppose. They didn't have to be here today now that Eloise has given her testimony and Margot refused to speak on the matter." Harry frowned.

"That's too bad. I would've liked to have met them. I suppose I'll meet them eventually though." He said thoughtfully.

"Um, why's that?" I asked, not following.

"Well I'd like to visit you during summer, you know—I might not be your daughter, but I'd still like to see you occasionally." He said. I blinked in surprise.

"Harry, I'm not moving to France if I'm found innocent. I'm staying in Britain for the Order and to be there for you—your life's going to be _a lot_ harder now that we're in open war." I said. To my surprise, Harry looked absolutely revolted. "Wow, do you really dislike me _that_ much?" I asked dryly.

"Margot's your _daughter_ and you're just abandoning her? Again?" Harry asked. "I don't care if you want to be with Eloise or not, but you should at least be in the same country as your daughter. Get a flat there for the summers or something."

"Your parents entrusted you to me if something should happen to them—"

"Yeah, my parents—who died to protect their child. How'd you reckon they'd take to you _abandoning_ yours?" He asked harshly just as court was called into session, cutting off any kind of reply I could give him. It was actually fortunate timing, as I didn't really have a reply that had any kind of grounding in the truth.

The truth was that James would be disgusted—Lily had been furious enough for the both of them the first time around even though James had managed to put aside his uneasiness for the sake of his own family. Still, that had been before Margot had been born and once she had been, James had become a huge proponent of seeking Eloise and Margot out so I could at least try to be present for my daughter.

Needless to say, that hadn't ever happened.

Not ten minutes into the proceedings, some bloke from the Ministry gave me the Veritaserum and the next thing I knew, everyone was staring at me in shock. See, one of the lovely side effects of this particular drug was that you don't really remember what exactly you say when under its influence—unless it's a highly diluted concentration and it appeared the Ministry hadn't been taking any chances with effectiveness because I felt like I had just blacked out.

"So, am I going to die? I'd really rather not." I said, looking around.

"No, you're not going to die." Amelia said. "Your charges are being dropped. Well, technically the charges for breaking out of Azkaban and the illegal Animagus transformation aren't being dropped, but you've already served more than the sentences attached to those crimes." I felt my mouth drop open in surprise.

"Really?" I asked. "This isn't a joke? Most good things in my life end up being jokes." I clarified, making a few people suppress smile.

"Really." Amelia said, waving her wand, the shackles dropping off. "Enjoy becoming acclimated to freedom."

* * *

 _I really felt that that exchange at the end with Harry and Sirius was super important because it echoes the one Harry will eventually have with Remus in DH when he tries to leave Tonks to go adventuring with Harry._

 _Also, I thought that adding Margot's...special talent was vital as well because makes the fact that Sirius can run, but he can't hide from his daughter very literal._

 _See you back in the 70s on the 'blissful' honeymoon!_


	5. The Exact Same

_Hi! So this is a really short one (it was originally going to be a part of the last chapter in the 70s, but it seemed a touch too long), but it really sets up a lot of the dynamic between Eloise and Sirius for the first part of their relationship._

 _Read and Review!_

 _Love, Essie_

* * *

 _Sirius, 1977_

We arrived at the hospital and Eloise was transferred to a room from the back of the ambulance. I followed the nurses pushing her bed to the room. It was depressingly sterile and I watched one of the nurses remove the tube from her throat after a few minutes, causing her throat to make a horrific choking sound as it came out. The nurse looked at me.

"English?" I nodded and she left. A woman came in about ten minutes later.

"You're the English couple?" She asked. I nodded. "My name's Anna—I'm the hospital's translator." She said.

"Thank God—has anyone told you what happened to her? I came back from a walk and all the paramedics would say is that she was ill." I asked, just as a doctor and a few nurses came in. Anna said something to them in French and they answered, examining Eloise's body. Anna talked to me as they talked at her. Really, that was an art.

"We're not quite sure what happened. When the paramedics got there, she was barely alive and bleeding from the mouth, although there's no apparent cause. It seems as if she went into cardiac arrest, but given her age, that's almost impossible." Anna said. "Also, there's no damage to the heart itself, so that doesn't suggest a heart attack either—neither does the blood that came from her mouth." Anna narrated to me. "There appears to be nothing wrong with her."

"Nothing wrong? Have you _looked_ at her?" I asked skeptically. She relayed this to the doctor, who answered through the translator.

"Anatomically, there's nothing wrong with her. There's no obvious internal bleeding and her lungs, heart, and brain are all functioning. Whatever caused this is something that we've never seen before." Anna narrated. "We're going to draw some blood to see if there's anything wrong with her blood panel and go from there." One of the doctors stuck her with a needle and took a vial of blood before nodding and leaving, the nurses following him. "I'll be back when there's something to tell you, okay?" Anna asked and I nodded.

"Thanks." I sighed, sitting down in a chair next to Eloise's bed and watching her sleep, nothing else to do. Eventually, I fell asleep right in that chair.

I woke up to soft French being spoken. I looked around to see Eloise awake and talking to the doctor directly, no need for a translator. She seemed to be disagreeing with him on something. I awkwardly cleared my throat. Eloise looked over at me coldly before pursing her lips and continuing to bicker with the doctor.

"What's going on?" I asked her. She said something to the doctor, who nodded and left, closing the door behind him. "Do they know what happened to you? I came back and you were half-dead in an ambulance." She looked over at me with the same icy look in her already ice blue eyes.

"No, but I do—not like I can tell them." She said. "Would it have killed you to have waited at least until _after_ our honeymoon to start fucking other women?" I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I know about her—unless it was a bloke, but I _really_ doubt that."

"Care to explain what you're going on about?"

"In our wedding vows, there was a bit about infidelity—the more you fuck other women, the more hurt I am. You kiss some woman in passing and yeah, it kind of stings, but you shag for hours on end this is what happens. You could have killed me—you almost did." She said accusingly. "It goes the other way too of course, but I'm obviously not going around fucking men left, right, and center as you're not the one in a hospital bed." She said. "This all leads to the obvious question: did you not listen or do you just not care how much you hurt me if you can get off from it?"

"Eloise, I just didn't listen, I didn't know about—"

"Whatever. My parents were right to anticipate you cheating. Too bad your parents insisted that their precious heir not be affected—so I have to suffer instead." She said. "I hope she was worth it. I hope she was so good that it makes up for the fact that it felt like I was having a heart attack, that it felt like someone was gouging my heart out of my chest and no amount of screaming could help how I felt like I was drowning without a drop of water in sight." She said, her eyes willing up. "I hope all of the ones that are going to follow her are worth it too." She added softly, looking away from me and at her lap instead. "Go get the doctor. I'm leaving against medical advice—there's nothing they can do for me here and this is just a waste of time." She added, staring at her lap. I got up and headed for the door. "Do you know the saddest part?" She asked suddenly. I turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow. "You think you're not like your father and you're _exactly_ like him." I opened my mouth to argue with that, but realized I really couldn't. My father's affairs were no secret even to my mother. "Merlin, my parents were _so_ wrong about you—for some completely unfathomable reason, they thought you would treat me well and I was stupid enough to think that maybe they were right."

"Eloise—"

"Go. _Now_." She said, clearly not asking.

The last week and a half of our honeymoon was intensely awkward. Eloise refused to even look at me, barely answering my questions with a single word. By the time we returned to England, I resented her as much as she resented me. Our portkey dropped us off in the middle of Bath to see our parents standing there.

"Ah, there's the happy couple!" Lady Bennett said with a smile, hugging her daughter. Eloise smiled at her mother gently, clearly not wanting to let on about the…marital disagreement we had recently had. "Now, let's go see your house and then the Blacks have a gift for you." We both nodded and walked down the street, stopping at a house. It looked relatively small and had a brick driveway with enough room for maybe one car next to the small iron gate to the walkway leading to the front door.

"Your mother insisted, Eloise—I thought we should get something a bit larger, lots of children are the best children after all, but she absolutely insisted on this one." My mother said. Eloise smiled.

"I love it, Mother. What do you think, Sirius?" She asked lightly, not sounding bitter or resentful at all. I blinked in surprise at the change from the last week or so.

"Uh, yeah. It's really nice." I said, trying to think of something.

"Why don't we head in and we give you our wedding present?" My father said, ushering all of us into the house. It wasn't as depressing as Grimmauld, but it definitely had impressions of my mother on it. I suppose Lady Bennett hadn't been able to completely disregard her. "Now, with you and Regulus being gone and graduated after this year, your mother and I decided that we have no more need for two house elves." I raised an eyebrow.

"You did _not_ cut Mipsy's head off." I snapped at him. Everyone looked at me, surprised that I was choosing to take that tone with my father—in public no less.

"No, I did not. She's yours now." He said and as he said it, Mipsy appeared in the house with a huge smile.

"We'll leave you to get settled into your new home and your new life together." Lord Bennett said before kissing his daughter's forehead fondly and Apparating away with his wife, holding her hand. My parents left as well, leaving Eloise, Mipsy, and I standing there in the entrance of the house.

"Can Mipsy help Master or Mistress?" She asked. She had always been a kind elf, even when we had been children.

"Nothing for now, Mipsy. Where do you plan to sleep?" Eloise asked carefully. Had she never had an elf before? What kind of family didn't have an elf?

"In the spot my old Master and Mistress prepared for me while Master and Mistress were away." She said.

"Can you show me where?" Eloise asked, ignoring her things and following the elf. I slowly followed them, watching to see what was going to happen. They stopped outside what appeared to be the kitchen. "Under _the sink_? Absolutely not." Eloise sounded mortified. "Would you like a bed?"

"A real bed? No, it's not a elf's place, Mistress!" Mipsy sounded equally as scandalized as her mistress did. "Mipsy only wishes where she can be most helpful."

"Well, where would that be? My family hasn't had an elf since before I was born." Ah, that made sense.

"Perhaps in the pantry, Mistress? There's lots of room for Mipsy to be helpful." Eloise looked into the pantry and nodded.

"If you insist. Here, let's at least get you something to sleep on." She said and pulled her wand out, waving it a couple times to conjure up quite a few blankets and two pillows. Mipsy hesitated in taking them.

"Mistress, Mipsy doesn't know if this is how Master's family treats their elves…" She trailed off looking at me. Eloise looked over at me as well. "Mipsy and Kreacher lived down in the basement at Grimmauld Place."

"I don't care how Walburga and Orion Black treated you. You live here and as I'm not Walburga you'll be treated with respect—from _all_ parties." Eloise said, looking at me and daring me to contradict that. The gentle smile she had given her mother was long gone. Mipsy smiled and took the blankets.

"Thank you, Mistress. Mistress is kind—much kinder than Master's family." Mipsy said, snapping her fingers and the blankets going into the pantry.

"I know elves can't wear clothes, but perhaps we can clean that up a bit too, hm?" She asked, waving her wand and cleaning off the rag Mipsy was wearing. Mipsy was positively beaming. "Take as much time as you need to get settled in, Mipsy. We still have to do the same ourselves." Eloise said and the elf nodded and vanished into the pantry.

Eloise brushed past me and headed back towards where our things were still in the entryway without a word. I heard her picking up her suitcase and heading upstairs. I grabbed my own bag and started upstairs as well. I looked through the bedrooms to find the master empty, noise coming from one of the other rooms. I looked in the room quietly to see Eloise dropping her bag on the floor and running a hand through her hair. She looked deeply saddened, burdened and much older than eighteen, until she saw I was there and her face closed off.

"What?" She asked, opening her suitcase up and starting to pull things out.

"I just was curious why you weren't in the master bedroom." She shrugged, not looking at me.

"You're insane if you think I'm going to share a room with you." She said, continue to unpack. "Besides, there isn't room for you, me, and all of your future whores in one bed."

"It was one time, Eloise."

"We've only been married two weeks!" She shouted, turning around. "That might, just _maybe_ , pass as a valid argument if we'd been married for two _decades_ , but not two weeks. You have no excuse and you know it." I blinked in surprise at the change from anger to resignation. "Just try not to drag it out so long next time—I'd rather not be in agonizing pain for hours at a time if I don't have to be." She said before turning back around and continuing to unpack.

"You should take the master bedroom. I'll stay here." I said, not knowing what to say.

"You're head of the household—it's yours." She muttered, not looking at me.

"Eloise…please take the room. I'm trying to be nice and you're making it hard. Besides, you probably need the extra closet space."

"Has it occurred to you that I like this room _more_ than the master?" She asked. "Has it crossed your all-knowing mind that maybe I like the view from the window or that there's a spot in here that I think would be great to paint from or that I fancy the bathroom in this room more? If you want to be nice, stop telling me what to do. You've gone your whole life without giving me orders—surely you can go a bit longer."

"Course. Sleep where you'd like. I'll be down the hall." I said and walked into another room, ignoring the master bedroom for right now, closing the door to it on my way by.

Well, my marriage was off to a great start.

* * *

 _By the way, someone that reviewed last chapter (thanks for the review, **lightbabe** ) mentioned that they felt bad for Margot because Sirius was totally preferential to Harry and yeah, that's the general idea. HOWEVER, Margot is a person he's never met-and one he feels very threatened by. JKR has said that Sirius loves preaching wisdom and ignoring it in his own life, which is something he can't do with her. He can't spout philosophy at her like he can Harry because she can see what he's really thinking and I like to think that scares him a bit._

 _See you back in 1996!_


	6. The Happy Memories

_Hi! Welcome back to the 90s and thank you to everyone who reviewed; you all are my muses, honestly!_

 _Read and Review!_

 _Love, Essie_

* * *

 _Eloise, 1996_

"Eloise." I looked up from the dress I was beading with a needle and thread.

"Yeah, Sydney?" I asked. "Did I forget an appointment or something?" I had to make a conscious effort to use French. It was always harder to remember when Margot was home and I spoke English with her. It had been a week since I had been in England to testify and I had realized that my English was getting alarmingly rusty when I had been there so Margot and I had decided to only use English at home for a time, until we both got back into the language.

"No, there's a call for you." She said. I nodded and followed her to the reception desk, picking up the phone.

"Hello?"

" _Lulu, it's me."_ I smiled.

"Melody George. How are you, love?" I asked, switching back to English. "What brings you to calling me at work?" I leaned against the counter, waving a hand to Sydney to let her know it was fine. The receptionist smiled and returned to her desk.

" _Well, I'm still living in London—as you know."_ I had gone to Beauxbatons with Mel—she had been one of the only other English speakers in the school (her parents had seen the writing on the wall about the war like mine had and sent her away). Although she was three years older than me, she had been glad to be one of my best friends because we could chat in our native tongue.

"Seeing that Margot and I were there a week ago, yes."

" _I heard from someone today and it…came as a bit of a shock."_ She sounded like she was working up to something. It was probably something I didn't want to hear, judging by how she was acting.

"Yeah, who's that?"

" _Sirius."_ I felt my mouth drop open.

"Are you joking? How did he find you?"

" _Apparently he has a cousin in the Auror Department or something and she tracked me down. I don't know, really. Anyways, he showed up at my_ house _this morning. Your bloody estranged husband showed up at eight in the morning."_

"What did he want? I doubt he wanted to just swing by for a chat with you and Carter." I asked, wondering where this was going. Nowhere good, I was sure. Sirius caused havoc through his mere presence a lot of the time.

" _I let him in—I mean I couldn't just leave him on the street with all the cameras trying to snap a picture of the famous vindicated ex-con, not to mention I was curious. As soon as he was inside, he started practically begging me to tell him where you and Margot are living or for a phone number or any way to get into contact with you. He said he wanted to get to know Margot."_ I raised an eyebrow.

"What did you tell him?"

" _I told him that I wasn't giving him shit, but if he'd leave a phone number, I'd pass it on to you and let you and Margot decide whether they wanted to open the door for contact."_ She said. I nodded. Melody and her husband Carter had long ago elected never to have children and concentrate on each other and their careers, but it was that fair and diplomatic part of Mel that would've made an excellent mother—if she had wanted to be one, that is.

"Thanks, Mel. I appreciate you not telling him anything. Between us, Margot got a chance to talk to him before we left England and…it didn't go well. She left in tears, so it's good she'll be able to decide if she wants to see him and not the other way around." I told her.

" _I figured something had happened—he seemed pretty desperate."_ She said. _"Anyways, I thought I'd let you know as soon as possible. If you have a pen and paper, I'll give you his number. He's apparently living in a Muggle flat or something."_ I nodded, grabbing those two things from the receptionist's counter I was leaned on, giving Mel the go-ahead to tell me the number. _"I'll let you go, Lulu—can't keep the brides waiting for their dresses, can we?"_ I smiled.

"Course not. Talk soon, Mel Bell." I said and hung up, heading back to my beading and wondering how I was going to bring this up with Margot. She had been so hopeful when she had gotten the chance to talk to her father, only for him to squish that right out of her.

By the time I got home to Margot, I still didn't know how to introduce the topic gently. Who knows? Maybe she'll be really excited. Maybe if he hadn't just made her cry.

"Margot, can I come in?" I asked gently, knocking on her bedroom door.

"Sure." She said. I opened her door to see her sitting at her desk, doing her summer work for school. She took after me and not Sirius academically—she was my little overachiever and not her father's little slacker. "How was work?"

"It was good. I'm almost done with the beading on that ball gown I've been working on for ages." I said, sitting down on the bench built into the walls—it and the curtains in front of it made up her reading nook. Margot looked at me, concerned. I either had a look on my face or my mental walls were slipping.

"What's wrong?" She asked, capping her inkwell and sitting next to me.

"I heard from your auntie Mel today at work." I said.

"At work? Is everything okay? She and Carter haven't been hurt have they?" She asked, looking worried for her aunt.

"No, they're fine. This morning…your father showed up at their house." I said. "He wanted to know how to find us—he told her that he wanted to get to know you." She blinked in surprise. "Mel didn't tell him anything about where we were or anything about a phone number, but he left a phone number with her in case you _do_ want to see him. No one blames you if you don't, Ducky—not after how he treated you." She nodded. "You don't have to answer that yet, but this is the number if you ever want to call him." I handed her the paper, which she took silently. "And if you don't want to make the call yourself, I'll make it for you—just let me know if you're ever ready." She nodded a little again.

"Thanks, Maman." She said. "I'll let you know. I actually have something to show you." She said much happier suddenly. She pulled out one of her sketchbook for her classes. "What do you think of this? We have to have a couple pieces put together for next term." I looked at it and raised an eyebrow.

"An evening gown?" I asked, examining it. Margot was taking all of the classes I had: Fabrics and Fibers, Design, and so on.

"Mhm. I was wondering if you think it would look better in chiffon or charmeuse." She asked. I looked at it, thinking.

"Well, personally, I think that you should pass on the chiffon because of how the dress is structured, it would be better suited to a silkier looking fabric, something that's a bit more floaty—make it look dreamier." I answered. "It's really pretty, mon canard. We can go out and get the fabrics whenever you're ready to start sewing it together." She smiled.

"Thanks, Maman." I kissed the top of her head and didn't let go, keeping my lips pressed to her hair. "Is everything okay?" I closed my eyes and didn't move. This was my precious baby girl—the teenager that I had been with every single step of the way—and I didn't like uncertainty in her life; uncertainty was dangerous. Her father was a variable I had no way of accounting for. He could hurt her in a way no one else could and he probably wasn't even aware of that.

"Of course." I said, releasing her head and smiling. "I'm not allowed to hug my daughter? I only see you for holiday, you know." She smiled a bit in return and hugged me tightly.

"I suppose you're allowed." She mumbled into my neck. I smiled a bit as she let go of me.

"I'll leave you to your work. Think about what you want to do about your father—even if you decide to do nothing." I said. She nodded as I stood up. "Just let me know whenever you're ready to—whether it be tonight or next month."

"I will. Go take a bath, Maman—you could use it." I laughed a little. She wasn't wrong about that.

"Sounds like a plan. Raviolis for dinner tonight, okay?" I said and left her room, heading for my own to take that bath she had mentioned.

I got out of the bath and walked into my closet—ah yes, my beloved closet. It had been magically grown (internally not externally, a bit like magical tents) several times to accommodate all of the clothes, shoes, handbags, and jewelry that my job required me to have. It was actually now two floors, the entrance from my room on the top one and a spiral staircase heading down to the lower floor. Even when I had been a girl, I never would have imagined I'd eventually have something this large in terms of clothes. I walked over to the jewelry table and opened up one of the drawers I kept constantly locked to reveal the remnants of my relationship with Sirius—the few things I had kept that reminded me of him. My ring was long gone, but my wedding band was still in here as were stacks of Polaroids; I had only kept the photos for Margot's sake—I thought one day she might want to see us when we were young. She knew they existed, but had yet to ask to see them.

I caught sight of a picture of me standing in the middle of an empty living room, hands in the air and clearly laughing. This was right when we had been handed the keys to our apartment in Paris when we had moved away from Bath. It had been a good day. I looked under it to see a picture of Sirius and I in some park or another. I picked it up to look at it closer. It had apparently been summer because I was in a sundress and sandals and he was in a short-sleeved shirt. This one was magic, which meant that James had likely been the one to take it. Merlin we were young. In the photo, I was sprawled across the grass, my head in my husband's lap. We were clearly talking and laughing about something or another only for Sirius to plug my nose with his fingers. Me in the photo clearly squealed and swatted his hand away before laughing. I felt myself smile.

"Maman?" I jumped, looking up to see Margot watching me. "What's that?"

"Old photos." I said, putting the photo back in its home.

"Of you and my father." It wasn't a question. I nodded. "…Can I see?"

"Of course you can, mon canard. I only kept them for you, in case you ever wanted them." I said, motioning her over and handed her the photo I had just put down a moment earlier. She looked down at it and smiled. She'd never seen the pictures of Sirius and I when we had been together except for some horrific shot that had apparently been taking at our wedding that I didn't even remember happening. I had probably been too bust being horrified that I had just married a complete stranger.

"You look happy." She said, still looking at it.

"I was. Your father made me really happy. The only person that's ever made me as happy as he did is you." I said. "From the moment you were born you've made me happy." She smiled a bit at me.

"If you had stayed together and he hadn't gone to jail, do you think you would have had another baby?" She asked, handing me the picture back. I blinked in surprised. She had never pried much into my life with Sirius before—his reappearance was likely what was causing this.

"I don't know. That would have depended on a million things." I said. "Maybe we would have, but there's no telling now. Even if he stayed, there's no telling what kind of father he would have been and there's no way to know how we would have parented together." She nodded.

"Just curious. Is this your wedding band?" She asked, pointing into the drawer. I handed the worn gold ring to her.

"The shitty first one that we were given by our parents to force onto each other." I said. "We got new ones later on."

"Where's that one?"

"I don't have it anymore." I said, not elaborating. "I got rid of it long ago."

"You really loved each other." She said.

"Yeah, Ducky, we did. Don't think that you came from a loveless relationship—you didn't. We just ended poorly." I said and she nodded a bit, giving the wedding band back to me.

"Can you call him? I think I'd like to get to know him a bit." She said. I nodded. "Maybe wait until tomorrow though—it's a bit late." I smiled a little at her, locking the drawer back up.

"Yeah, I'll give him a call tomorrow before I go to work. Think about what you want me to tell him though—do you want to go out for lunch or something this weekend?" She nodded.

"If we're in Paris, I need to pick up fabric too—just by the way." Margot said, handing me the paper with the phone number back to me. "Thanks, Maman." She added and left. I gave one last look at the drawer that held the remnants of my marriage and left as well, heading to the kitchen to make dinner for my daughter.

That night, I found it impossible to sleep and when I finally did manage to sleep, I kept dreaming about my bloody relationship with Sirius—the good parts.

" _Hey." I looked up to see Sirius walking into our room, closing the door behind him just as I was walking out of the bathroom, getting out of the shower. I smiled as I adjusted the towel around me._

" _Hey. Everyone's in bed?" I asked as I started to look for panties to wear in my dresser after magically drying my hair._

" _Mhm. Just said goodnight to James." He said. I heard the sound of the curtains closing. "Now, are you going to drop that towel now that all of Paris won't be able to see your bum?" I rolled my eyes and dropped the towel, not turning around from looking through my drawers. "Much better." He murmured, making me jump a little as a warm hand touched my waist from behind. "You know, James told me not to shag with my family visiting, but I don't know…you look awfully tempting like this, baby." I smiled to myself a bit as I felt him wrap his arms around my waist and pull me to his chest. I allowed myself to relax into him, but didn't do anything more, my feet screaming for relief from standing here._

" _Can I take a rain check? My hands and feet are killing me and I'm exhausted." I murmured. I heard Sirius sigh as he rested his chin on my shoulder, removing a hand from my waist and taking my hands. "Careful—those are the moneymakers." I said as he played with the fingers on my right hand. He chuckled and kissed just behind my ear before letting me go._

" _Rain check on the shag." He agreed as I finally put on panties and one of his t-shirts. "You'll have arthritis in your hands before you're thirty at this rate, you know. And probably carpal tunnel too." I rolled my eyes, sitting in bed and summoning the tin of bitterroot balm for my hands from my vanity._

" _The things we do for the things we love." I said, rubbing the balm onto my hands, massaging it into my palms and fingers. "Merlin, this stuff is magic." I sighed, feeling the pain recede from my hands._

" _You should really do something for your feet too, you know. We're probably going to be walking the city tomorrow and that requires feet." Sirius pointed out as he pulled his shirt off, stripping to his boxers._

" _Well after you brush your teeth, you can give them a nice rub before we go to bed. Thank you for offering, chéri." I said cheerily, making him roll his eyes with a poorly concealed smile as he walked into the bathroom. He came back out just as I was finishing up with the bitterroot balm and sat down at my feet, pulling them into his lap gingerly._

" _Blisters?" I shook my head, groaning as he started to rub my feet._

" _So much better than sex right now." I said absently, lying back on my pillows. I laughed when he tugged on one of my toes at that._

" _Says you." I smiled at the ceiling._

" _Honestly, I'll jerk you off, if you're okay with the bitterroot making everything down there a bit numb." I said. He pulled my toes again._

" _I think I'll manage to wait until you won't make my cock numb, sweetheart." He said with a smile. I smiled a bit too._

" _Maybe something nice and slow tomorrow morning before we get out of bed, hm?" I asked as he switched which foot he was rubbing._

" _Sounds brilliant." He said, reaching up and rubbing my calves gently as well. Merlin, I could die a happy woman if he kept this up. "Now, I think it's time for bed." Sirius added after a few minutes._

" _Mhm." I said, pulling my feet from him and tucking them—along with the rest of my body—under the covers as Sirius opened the curtains again, this time by hand instead of magically, manually checking each of the locks on the sliding glass doors as well. "We're all safe?" I asked, already starting to fall asleep._

" _Yep. No one's getting in tonight." He said, getting into bed next to me, wrapping his arms around me from behind and moving me slightly so I was nestled against his chest, my head just under his chin._

" _You know that they're already locked with magic, right? And that we're nine floors above ground level." I mumbled._

" _I know. I just like making sure that we're safe." He said behind me. "Besides, Death Eaters know how to fly brooms, you know."_

" _We're in France, Sirius—the war isn't here." I said, reaching back and blindly touching his hair. "It's back in England—a long way away from us."_

" _Old habits, I suppose. Go to sleep, sweetheart; you've had a long day." He said. I had no argument for that and closed my eyes. "I love you."_

" _I love you too." I mumbled as I fell asleep, the Paris skyline twinkling outside the windows._

* * *

 _Hm, so it_ wasn't _a completely loveless marriage? Wonder how that comes to be..._

 _See you in the 70s!_


	7. The Gaping Wound

_Hi! So this is a MASSIVE chapter, especially for this story, but I couldn't find a good place to break it, even though I switch POV partway through, Eloise's part just seemed a touch too small to have its own chapter._

 _Anyways, read and please review you guys! It makes uploading much more fun and the emails give me a nice reminder that I need to do it!_

 _Love, Essie_

* * *

 _Eloise, 1978_

We had been married for a month when I got it. I was out in the gardens drawing a nearby hummingbird sucking the nectar from a flower and had just traded in the pencil for some watercolors when Sirius came outside. Brilliant.

"Yes?" I asked, mixing pain colors carefully.

"Mail came for you." He said and put it on the table I was sitting at. "It's really good—the bird, I mean." He added before leaving. I looked over at the letter, putting down my paintbrush and picking it up to read it.

 _Eloise Bennett_

I missed my old name. I missed my old life in general. I missed Italy and I missed Beauxbatons. I wanted to go back to before I'd met Sirius—before I'd found out about this stupid marriage at all. I smiled a bit though, recognizing the handwriting. I opened the letter and read it curiously, wondering what Melody would want—she was busy being in a cute relationship and having a brilliant job in the Ministry of Magic last I heard.

 _Lulu,_

 _I know it's been so long and I can't believe I've been out of Beauxbatons for over three years now! I've never forgotten about my favorite underclassman though—us English-speakers have to stick together, huh? You've certainly graduated by now and I heard from Jamie that you've finally married some bloke for that marriage that your parents have been harping on about since forever—which actually kind of leads me to the reason I'm writing. See…I'm getting married! Carter proposed not a week ago and it was so romantic. He took me to the beach we met on in Greece and while we were watching the sunset, he got down on one knee without me even noticing! That probably won't come as a surprise though—you know how oblivious I can be about what's going on around me._

 _The wedding's going to be in mid-July, I think and there's something I really want to ask of you. I can't make you a bridesmaid, as much as I wanted to (Carter has two groomsmen and a Best Man and I have the three sisters, so that fills all the spots) but I was wondering if my talented little underclassman would be willing to design my wedding dress because she loves me so much. I really want it to be special and I can't think of any better person in the world for the job._

 _Wedding or not, we have to catch up soon, especially now that you're living back in the country all the time now. Carter and I are looking for houses in London (jobs at the Ministry and all) and according to your mother, you're not too far away in Bath. Besides, I HAVE to meet this husband of yours soon—I don't care if you don't love him, but you're spending your lives together and I want to see whether he's good enough for my Lulu (he probably isn't—no one ever will be, love, just face it)._

 _Anyways, please write back about the dress (you're totally going to do it, we both know it) and we'll make plans together soon, okay? Look for the official invite to the wedding in the post!_

 _Love you!_

 _Mel_

I read the letter twice before I realized that there was another paper in the envelope. It was a photo. It was of Melody, Jamie (my best friend), me, and the rest of our girlfriends at school (including Mel's sisters), just before Mel had graduated. There were about twelve of us total. I read the back and smiled at Melody's caption: _the girls at Mel and Tay's graduation, 1975_

Without further ado, I burst into tears looking at the picture.

I missed my life. I even missed those stupid hats we had been forced to wear to class. I just wanted my own life back. I missed being that happy, laughing with all my friends. Merlin, I missed _laughing_ ; I don't think I've laughed since I got married.

I didn't want to live here and I didn't want to be married to Sirius. I wanted to live in Italy with my parents and brother, I wanted to go to Beauxbatons in a few weeks like normal, I wanted to have a girls' night with all twelve of those girls in the dorms, staying up until an unholy hour. I wanted to be in love with my husband like Mel was—I wanted someone to propose to me where we met, to get down on one knee and give me a ring. I wanted to have a real wedding in a white dress with all my friends there and I wanted to have a first dance and a bouquet toss and to shove cake into my husband's face while we laughed. I _wanted_ to be excited for the future.

But I wasn't.

I couldn't have any of that because I _did_ live here, I _was_ married to Sirius, and I _couldn't_ turn back time—no matter how much I wished I could. I'd never marry the man I loved and I'd never have an engagement ring or wear a white dress or have someone tell me that they'll love me forever. Those were all facts and I hated every single one of them. For the first time in my life, I felt… _cheated_. I felt like my parents had cheated me out of a good life— _my_ life—I realized as I continued to sob in the garden, watercolors traded up for waterworks.

"Eloise?" I looked up to see Sirius.

"What?" I asked, wiping my eyes.

"Is everything okay? I heard you crying from inside and…"

"Everything's fine—more than, really. One of my best friends is getting married." I said, wiping my eyes again. "She's a few years older than us and she's been with Carter for years now; he's a great guy and Mel's always been one to start a family. No one's hurt or anything." He nodded a little.

"If you're sure…"

"I am. If you don't mind, I'd like some privacy." I said, picking up my paints and notebook and walking inside, clutching the letter and photo to my chest as I went, tears still falling. I put the photo on my nightstand, conjuring a frame for it and positioning it in a way I could see it from bed before placing the letter on my vanity beside my sketchbook with the hummingbird in it. I looked over at the easel that had been unused so far and pulled a canvas out of the closet in the hall and placed it there, summoning my acrylic paints and a pencil.

Someone cleared his throat in the doorway. I looked up to see Sirius.

"Dinner's ready."

"You couldn't have sent Mipsy? She normally gets me." I asked, eyeing him.

"She tried. You just ignored her." Sirius said. I nodded, unsurprised. Mother always used to say that the building could fall down around my ears while I painted and I wouldn't notice.

"Oh, well that wasn't very nice of me." I said, standing up from the stool I had spent the last five or so hours on (it had apparently been five hours since I'd started). "I'll be right down." I said, hoping he'd leave. He took the hint and nodded, heading back downstairs silently. I capped all my paints and such before washing my hands and going downstairs for dinner. "I'm sorry for ignoring you, Mipsy." I told the elf as I reached the dining room. "I didn't even hear you—it happens while I'm painting. My friends always picked on me for it, actually." I said, taking my seat at the ten-person table. Sirius and I sat at opposite ends, each one of us at the head of the table, pretending like the other wasn't there.

Life wasn't terribly friendly around here, suffice to say.

* * *

"I'm going out—I need to pick up a few things." I said to Sirius the next afternoon. He looked up from the letter he was writing.

"Sure. Be safe." He said and I nodded a little. I was just going to pop into London to pick up some painting supplies and the like, as I had been burning through them at an absurd rate due to the fact I didn't have much more to do right now. "Think you'll be back for dinner? Mipsy will want to know."

"I should be—I'm just getting painting things. It'll only take an hour or two at most." I said. "Enjoy your letter."

"Enjoy your shopping." Well that was the most lifeless conversation ever. We had carried better conversation the first time we had met. With that, I Apparated to London, making a mental note to get more canvases.

* * *

 _Sirius, 1978_

Eloise had been gone for about two hours when I first felt it: an uncomfortable sting somewhere in my chest. I ignored it and kept looking through the Muggle classifieds, hoping to come across what I was looking for: a motorcycle. It happened again, this time stronger, _much_ stronger. The burning spread from my chest and into my stomach and then my limbs, setting every part of my body that it touched on fire. This must be what infidelity feels like. She apparently wasn't out getting art supplies—she was out shagging some bloke, I realized as I fell out of my chair and hit the ground, blood starting to drip out of my mouth a bit. It lasted for who-knows how long and it suddenly vanished, except for a searing pain in my upper abdomen, leaving me barely conscious—something that lasted only a minute. I was passed out not long after the pain eased.

I woke up to see that it was dark out and it sounded like I saw still alone. Mipsy was gone as well—she had left to go get groceries not long after Eloise had gone out, so I was alone. Eloise. What a bitch. She preaches at me about not cheating and she goes and fucks some guy knowing I'd feel it. Did she just want me to feel it, to know what it felt like? Not only that, but she had been a virgin—she had gone out and given up her virginity to someone just to make a bloody point.

I got myself off the ground and stumbled to the nearest bathroom, wiping the blood off my face and trying to wake up a bit more. No wonder Eloise had been screaming for someone to help her in that hotel room—that had been horrible. Still, she was a right cunt for knowingly doing that to someone—and then not coming back to face me about it. Just as I checked the time (it was nearly ten), someone knocked on the front door. I opened it to see a very solemn police officer.

"Erm, hello." I said, hiding my wand behind me. "Can I help you?"

"Are you Sirius Black?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Your wife's name is Eloise?" I nodded. "She was in London today?"

"Yeah, that's what she told me. Why?" I asked.

"We…well, it's best you speak to her and the officer on the case." He said. "Head into London and this address. It's the station you need to go to." He handed me a card.

"What's happening? Why is she in police custody?" I asked.

"I can't tell you—all I can say is she was found in the streets and someone called the police. I'd strongly recommend heading into the station immediately." He said. I nodded and the officer nodded, heading to his car on the curb and driving away. I looked at the card. Surely this could wait until tomorrow morning. She could just hang out in one of the holding cells, couldn't she? Merlin knows she deserves it for being vindictive enough to put me through that hell.

"Master?" Mipsy had returned. "Where is Mistress? She said she would be returning for dinner." She asked. I looked down at the card.

"She's in London. I'm going to go get her." I said and Apparated with a pop, heading into London. I walked into the police station and found the receptionist lady pretty quickly. "Hi, uh an officer just came to my door about my wife. Eloise Black?" I asked. She flipped through a file.

"Of course. Officer Patrick will speak with you." She said, waving down a woman. "This is Eloise's husband." She told the woman, who nodded seriously.

"Mr. Black, my name is Officer Kate Patrick." She said, shaking my hand. "You must be wondering why we sent an officer to get you."

"It's crossed my mind, yeah." I admitted as she gestured me to a room. "Care to enlighten me?"

"Why don't you take a seat and we'll talk?" I slowly sat.

"She didn't kill someone did she? She's never seemed the type." I said before thinking much about it.

"No, she hasn't killed anyone. However, Eloise is very lucky to be alive herself." She said. I raised an eyebrow. "She's currently at a nearby hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to the abdomen."

" _What?"_ I asked incredulously. "How exactly did she get shot?"

"She was mugged this afternoon. She only just now woke up—which is why it took us so long to contact you; we didn't know her name because everything on her had been taken. According to the account she gave my partner, she was walking with several bulky shopping bags down the street and a man pulled her into an alleyway and held her at gunpoint. She said she willingly gave everything up, but he shot her anyways. The last thing she claims to remember is him dragging her body behind a dumpster." Holy. Shit. "Fortunately, an employee of the restaurant the dumpster belongs to is a habitual smoker so when he took a step outside for a cigarette, he found her and called an ambulance. She woke up not an hour ago after undergoing surgery to remove the bullet and repair any internal damage that it did to her organs—fortunately, the doctors say she'll make a full recovery." I nodded.

"Yeah, thank God." I said, wondering why these things always had to happen to her. This was the second time she'd been in the hospital since we'd gotten married. Okay, so the first time was my fault, but whatever. Speaking of that…what had happened to me this afternoon? "The man…he didn't rape her, did he?" I asked slowly. Officer Patrick shook her head.

"No. She was fully clothed when the paramedics arrived and she's been checked repeatedly for injuries that would imply forced intercourse. He just took her jewelry, purse, and shoes—they were designer and quite valuable as I understand it." I nodded. Well, there went that theory. I sat there for a moment and Officer Patrick looked at me oddly. "Don't you want to see her?" She asked and I looked at her, realizing that most normal husbands would be beside themselves and banging down the hospital doors to see their injured wives.

"Yeah, of course. I just didn't know if there was anything else you needed to tell me." I lied, not wanting to seem like a psychopath. "Which hospital is she in?"

"I'll take you in the cruiser." She said. "Come on." I followed her to her car and silently got in the passenger seat, watching London slide by the windows. We reached the hospital and the woman walked me towards what I realized was intensive care. "You should know that she's quite injured…she's on oxygen and a lot of painkillers—she'll probably be quite loopy so don't take anything she says personally." She added, motioning to a room. "Go on in." I walked in to see Eloise lying in a hospital bed, apparently asleep. We were the only ones there, everyone else outside the room.

"Eloise?" I asked. She opened her eyes and stared at me for a solid five seconds before she finally said something.

"Great. You're here." Well, this was definitely marital bliss. "What do you want? For me to apologize for your feelings of discomfort earlier?" She asked, slurring. I raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't fucking anyone, Sirius—I know that's what you think—what you felt was me being shot. You feel my near-death experiences, like how I feel yours. Apologies." She added bitterly, nastily even. It felt weird to hear her swear. She usually had a pretty clean mouth. "What do you want?"

"The police came to the house—husband and all." I said. "How do you feel?"

"Do you really care or are you just asking?" She said belligerently.

"A bit of both, I suppose." I admitted. She shrugged.

"Like I've been shot. Still, at least this will keep me out of that fucking house for a few days." She sighed.

"That's nice of you."

"Oh, don't be so self-centered—I don't hate _just_ you." Well that makes it better. "I hate our marriage, I hate our house, I hate the city it's in, I hate that I have nothing to do, I hate that I have friends that are happy, I hate that I can't be happy for those friends because I'm too busy feeling bad for myself." She sighed, staring at the ceiling. She was clearly drugged—she was slurring almost every other word. "My life fucking blows and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm going to waste away in that stupid house doing nothing because that's what I'm supposed to do as a _good_ housewife and I fucking hate it. I hate that I'll never be able to marry someone I love and I hate you for helping take that away from me." She continued to ramble. Really, this is just heartwarming. It made me want to just leave her here and never come back. "That's why I didn't wear a white dress you know. I always wanted to wear one on my wedding day, but I couldn't for a man I don't love. I'll pretend for everyone else's benefit, but I'm not going to try to fool myself into thinking that I feel _anything_ for you." Just as she said that, a nurse came in.

"Okay, I think it's time for some of the good stuff and a nice, long nap." She said, replacing the IV bag beside Eloise's bed and injecting something into the port already in her arm. "Have a nice night, sweetie." She said to Eloise. "You're welcome to stay, if you'd like." She added to me as Eloise's eyes fluttered shut, her face relaxing as the sedative took effect.

"No, I think I'll head home." I said and she nodded, giving me directions to the exit. I simply walked into a bathroom and Apparated home.

I didn't go see Eloise the next day, instead calling up James and Remus to go out to lunch and then have a couple beers, chatting about our school days. I didn't mention Eloise to them except to say that she was staying in London for a few days due to her poor health. I just let them think she was staying with her mother there or something. They didn't pry much anyways, probably half-afraid to ask about he wife I clearly didn't like.

I didn't go see Eloise the day after that either—or the day after that or the day after that. Actually, I didn't go back for a week, assuming she'd be on the mend and wouldn't want to see me anyways.

* * *

"Master?" Mipsy asked shyly over breakfast on the eighth day after Eloise had been injured. "When will Mistress be home?" She was a much bigger fan of Eloise than of me. I had never really made an attempt to do anything for her when she had belonged to my parents, while my darling wife constantly thanked her and had recently made a new outfit for Mipsy to wear so she could pick her outfit everyday.

"I don't know." I said, eating my cereal.

"Please forgive me, Master, but Mistress has asked Mipsy not to go into her room without her present and Mipsy would very much like to do laundry. Mipsy was wondering if Master could go into Mistress Eloise's room and get her clothes basket so Mipsy could wash all the clothes together." She said quickly, like she was sure she was going to be told off or beaten. I was actually quite surprised—elves never asked anything of their masters. Apparently Mipsy had been growing bolder under Eloise's encouragement, something my parents would have killed her for—woman _and_ elf.

"I'll go get them after breakfast, Mipsy." I said, continuing to eat my cereal. "Where should I leave them?"

"Just outside the bedroom door, Master. Mipsy just cannot enter Mistress Eloise's room, but the hallway outside is allowed." She said. "Mipsy will go clean now." She added and vanished with a pop. I got up after breakfast and headed up to Eloise's room, walking in and looking for her hamper. It was quite weird being in here—I hadn't been past the doorway since we had moved in—and even weirder knowing I was in here very much without her permission.

I pulled the hamper out of her closet and looked around to see that she was pretty neat except for a few things on her vanity and the paint covered sheet covering her bed. She must put it there to protect the sheets she slept on. Before I left, I walked over into the corner and looked at the painting she had been working on. I hadn't seen any of her work so far and was curious. I looked over the easel and felt my mouth drop open slightly. It was a garden. Well, kind of like how Versailles had a 'garden'. Lots of fountains and sculptures and less trees. There was part of a palace in the background, gold and shimmering, flowers on the ground in swirling patterns. This must be Beauxbatons. It was beautiful. The sky hadn't been painted yet and neither had all of the flowers, although they were sketched out in pencil.

"Wow." I murmured, looking at it. No wonder her mother had claimed that it was a bit more than a hobby. She was one of the rare people that ever surpassed "well-trained" or "talented". She was gifted—really and truly gifted. Her parents had been right to encourage this. She was brilliant. I tore my eyes away from the painting and looked around once more before heading out. I paused at the picture on her nightstand. I had only seen it once from the doorway. I picked it up and tried to pick my wife out of the group of girls.

She wasn't there.

I slowly looked at every single person in the photo as they laughed and hugged each other, their grins frozen in time, and I still couldn't find her face. I slowly looked at each face, checking for the unusual pale blue eyes, and this time I found her. She was right in the middle, next to the two girls who weren't in blue school uniforms (theirs were silver instead).

Eloise Bennett looked nothing like Eloise Black. She was bright and alive and sunny. She looked…happy with each of her arms wrapped around a friend. She has dimples when she laughs, I noticed. She actually has _dimples_ —something I'd have no way of knowing, as she looked absolutely miserable every time I was around her. Her friends were as pretty as she was and some of them even looked like they might be part-Veela or something. I put it back down and went to leave, only to see an open inkwell on her desk, something that was bound for a disaster.

I walked over and closed it to see that she had been responding to a letter—the one beside the one she had been half-finished with. I picked up the letter from the stranger and read it, curious. I raised an eyebrow at the greeting. Lulu. Really? Her friends called her Lulu? Had they ever met her before? I skimmed it and figured out pretty quickly what she had meant when she said that her friends were all happy and she couldn't be happy for them. Her friend was getting married to the man she loved and had been sent a letter detailing all of the romantic parts. I put it down and picked up the letter Eloise had been writing.

 _Mel,_

 _Congratulations on the engagement! You and Carter are perfect in every single way and the wedding is going to be absolutely to die for! In terms of the dress, I'll do it, but you need to tell me what you want (at least kind of) and don't expect me to deliver it in person (I somehow doubt that my loving husband will be very amicable about me going with or without him)._

 _Okay, if you don't want to hear me bitch and moan about my spouse, just skip to the last paragraph of the letter—you've been warned._

 _So we got married about a month ago and it's been an absolute DISASTER. He couldn't even wait until we got home from our honeymoon before he started shagging women! We had been married three days—three days!—before he was off shagging some woman in Merlin-knows-where and it's not like he's exactly knocking on my door trying to shag me. Yeah, you read that right. The bloke decided that he'd like to wait on sex ON OUR WEDDING NIGHT. It was so embarrassing—I was almost completely out of my dress and he just decides that he'd rather go out and fuck a woman with tits the size of Chloe Beaumier's rack (to be fair, I never met the woman, so you'll have to bear with me through the descriptions because that really made me feel good). He's out fucking women when he won't even fuck his own wife—I mean I don't think I'm that ugly. I've actually always thought I was quite cute, but whatever._

 _This marriage has been the worst thing that has ever happened in my life without a doubt. I don't know what my parents were thinking, promising me to this twat. Mother told me that they looked at dozens of men to find the right one and that she and Father were sure about him, that he'd be good to me because he's the so-called 'rebel' of the family. They were completely wrong. I love them both, I do, but I really don't see how they could have missed how much of an inconsiderate twit he is! They're smart people, they should have seen it—it's not hard to miss! I can't believe I missed it too! Because I'm me and I tend to be blindly optimistic, after I met him the first couple times, I thought that maybe things could work out and even if we didn't love each other and go dancing off into the sunset, we could at least be friends (joke's on me)._

 _As for this whole 'rebel' business, he's exactly like the rest of the Blacks! You know their reputation as well as anyone else in the world does and he's exactly like the rest of them except for the fact he doesn't actively torture people in the kitchen when he gets bored. You should see how he treats our house elf! Treats her like absolute dirt, just like his parents do! Merlin, I'm absolutely dreading the time comes when our parents figure out that we're not having sex—we can't keep avoiding each other forever and they're going to force us into bed and then I'm going to have to have his little brats. You know how much I love kids but ugh, his kids are going to be absolute hell and of course I'm going to be stuck playing Mommy full-time, stuck in this house while he goes out and knocks up a bunch of whores all across the country, just like his father has. Merlin forbid they're boys—then I'll be living with more than one Black man that wouldn't care if I dropped dead this afternoon._

 _Okay, I'm going to stop bitching about my life because that's totally self-centered. Anyways, congratulations on your engagement! Carter's certainly a lucky man (literally no one deserves the perfect-in-every-way Melody George) and I'll be waiting eagerly for that invite you promised me so I can see just how stunning of a bride you'll be for myself. I'll start on the dress and let you know whether I can come (alone likely, as my spouse hates the idea of me, let alone actually spending time in the same room as me) later on, okay?_

 _Congratulations again, love!_

 _Lulu_

I put down the letter slowly and blinked in shock. She hated me. She didn't just hate me—she fucking _despised_ me. And she thought I hated her just as much as she clearly hates me. I didn't hate her, per say. I resented her because we were married, but I didn't want her to drop dead. Then again, she almost _had_ dropped dead a week ago (the day she had written that letter, actually) and from where she was sitting, it probably looked like I had taken this opportunity to be disappointed that she hadn't _actually_ died, as I hadn't been back since I had initially gone to see her. I refocused on the part about my father. He had other kids? No way. Regulus and I were the only ones on the tapestry and that thing knew everything. Besides, she had already said not to mind her exaggerations by that point in the letter.

I put the letter down where I found it and looked at the paper adjacent to it, which had made me think the letter was unfinished and not something else entirely. It looked like the beginnings of the dress she had mentioned in the letter. It was just a soft outline of a woman in pencil so far—nothing very definite.

Just as I finished looking, there was a knock on the front door, making me jump. I put the papers down where I had found them and dropped the laundry in the hallway before heading down to the front door. I opened it to see Eloise standing there, looking less than thrilled and quite pale in her hospital clothes, nothing on her feet but socks and a walker in front of her.

"Um, you didn't Apparate because…?" I asked as she walked in.

"Because my wand was in my purse, which was stolen—along with everything else on my body. I also don't have house keys." She said. Oh. "I've been able to leave the hospital for three days now, you know—the doctors convinced me to wait because they were sure you'd come by again and you could drive me home. When the one-week mark came around yesterday, I got the hint and came home myself."

"Yeah, how did you get here if you didn't have a wand?" I asked. She shrugged, her face scrunching in pain at the movement.

"I took a train."

"The station is almost five miles away." I said, staring at her.

"The hospital was nice enough to get me a ticket home, but there wasn't enough money left over for a taxi and Merlin knows no one was coming to help me, so I walked." She said.

"You walked. With a gunshot wound. And a walker." I said skeptically.

"What other choice did I have? Sleep with a taxi driver? Unlike some people, _I_ don't shag people outside the confines of marriage." She said pointedly. Fair enough. "Now, as I've spent the last three hours limping home with a gaping wound in my stomach and the two before that sitting like a sardine with a third-class train ticket, I think I'll go change out of these horrific clothes and go lay down with a book." She started to walk off, pushing the walker in front of her.

"Hey, Eloise?" I asked. She looked over at me. "If we weren't married, what would you be doing?" She raised an eyebrow. "Working? Traveling? What?"

"Working. I had a job offer back in Italy. My parents made me decline on the grounds that I was moving back to England to marry." She said softly. "Now if we're done with this depressing trip down memory lane about what my life could have been, I'm going to put on real clothes." With that, she carefully headed upstairs to change her clothes. Mipsy appeared a moment later.

"Master, Mistress is home!" She said to me excitedly. I thought about Eloise's letter. Did I really treat Mipsy like dirt? No, this was how elves are all treated. She didn't probably even notice—although maybe she did notice as she was much fonder of Eloise than she was of anyone else and there had to be a reason for that. Whatever—she was just looking for anything to complain about.

"I've noticed." I said dryly. "I left the laundry outside her door. Go get it before she trips over it and get started on both of our laundry, won't you?" I added.

"Yes, Master." Mipsy said quietly and vanished with a small pop.

I sat down at dinner that night on my own. With no food on the table. Dinner was always ready at eight. That fucking elf was late. I headed upstairs to see Mipsy just handing a tray of food to Eloise, who was in bed.

"Thank you, Mipsy. It looks wonderful—and thank you so much for doing my laundry. It was very smart of you to ask Sirius to come get it because you couldn't." She gently praised. "While I'm sitting about up here, I might make something else for you to wear—that thing you came here in is a mess." She mused thoughtfully. "How about something purple? It would bring out the green in those pretty eyes. Or would you like another color?"

"I like purple, Mistress." She said, ears flapping.

"Purple it is. Go on, I'm sure you have other things to do." Eloise said with a soft smile. Was she kind to literally everyone but me? Probably. Mipsy bowed quickly and vanished with a pop, not seeing me.

"Looks good." I said, nodding to the food balanced on the tray beside her. Eloise jumped at the intrusion, wincing at the jolt.

"Yeah, she's a great cook. I'm sure you have dinner waiting for you as well." Eloise said, coolly—clearly liking the elf more than she liked me.

"Actually, I don't." She raised an eyebrow. "It appears that you get first priority."

"Well, she has to feed one of us first until I can eat downstairs in a few days and we can eat together." She said with a shrug. "I'm sure there's food waiting for you now if you go back down." She added, taking a bite of the casserole in front of her. I shrugged, ignoring her reasonable explanation. Fuck reason. The woman hated me. "What? You have a look on your face." She asked blandly. "Just spit it out, Sirius—I'd like to eat this before it goes cold."

"Do you remember what you told me the day I came to see you?" I asked, deciding not to tell her that I'd read the letter.

"Not really. I'm assuming it was less than kind, judging by your face."

"You told me you hated me." I said. "And that you hated a lot of other things as well." She sighed, putting her food to the side.

"Did I tell you that I hate myself?" She asked quietly. I shook my head silently. "Well, I do. I don't hate you as a person, Sirius—I resent you because you make me hate myself, it's really nothing personal. You and everything about this life we're supposed to be living makes me hate myself." She said, looking down at her hands. "I hate myself for just going along with this and convincing myself that everything would be okay. Yes, I'm mad that you fucked some girl on our honeymoon and yes, that was really shitty of you to do, but I don't hate you and I see where you came from on a certain level. You thought I'd never know and you wanted sex and you weren't getting it from me—if you'd even want to sleep with me at all. I hate that I allowed myself to be in this situation—I hate myself for allowing all of this much more than I hate you for being a dick to me." She said.

For the first time since we had met, I felt bad for Eloise. For some reason, I had been thinking that she was thrilled to be playing a housewife—that she wanted to have ten kids and be a mom. She clearly didn't want this more than I did.

"The job that you declined." She raised an eyebrow. "What was it?" She blinked in surprise at the question, but answered.

"Fashion. A designer in Milan saw some of my sketches in my notebook while I was waiting to present at an art show in Venice about two months before we got married. He liked what he saw and asked for a portfolio. I gave it to him and he showed his boss, who offered me a job designing for them. I begged my parents to reconsider—to let me go work and do something I loved—but they wouldn't hear a thing about it." She sighed sadly. "What are you planning on doing? I'm assuming you're going to get a job eventually. You're not the one being forced to be a housewife, after all."

"Haven't thought about it, to be honest. Maybe Law Enforcement? I was thinking about going into the Auror program when I was in school, but I don't fancy my parents taking the house away because they don't like my career path."

"You want to be an Auror?" She asked, clearly surprised. "Really?"

"Really. I wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing." She raised an eyebrow.

"Huh." She said.

"What?"

"Wouldn't have guessed is all. Aren't Gryffindors supposed to be chivalrous or something?" She asked. I opened my mouth to tell her that wasn't in the description until I stopped. It actually was.

"Uh, yeah—that was never my strength. I was more of the 'daring and brave' end of the deal. Remus—one of my mates—had the chivalry thing down." I admitted.

"I always thought that I would have liked to have gone to Hufflepuff, but that's just me." She said thoughtfully.

"Hufflepuff's full of the leftovers from the other houses." I said reflexively.

"Well, that's me: the leftovers." She said, returning her attention to her food, clearly trying to put an end to the conversation at that.

"That's not what I meant." I said hastily, realizing that we were actually having a civil conversation and it was tolerable.

"Yes, it is." She said blandly. "That's exactly what you meant. I've been considered the leftovers my entire life, Sirius—it's nothing new." I raised an eyebrow. "Unlike you, I'm not heir to some fancy title or fortune. No one cares about the ladies. We're supposed to sit next to our husbands, look pretty, and talk about fashion amongst each other—only in private though, so we don't interrupt the much more important conversation the men are having."

"You don't want to talk about fashion? I thought you wanted to design." I said, not following. She rolled her eyes.

"Exactly." She muttered. "You should probably go eat dinner—it'll be getting cold downstairs." The dismissal was loud and clear. I hesitated.

"Are you good?" She raised an eyebrow. "At design. Are you good?"

"Good enough to be offered a job. Like everything else I love, it's just a hobby and I was as surprised as everyone else when I got the offer." She said. "Why?"

"It's a shame you didn't take the job." She nodded a little.

"I know it is." She said softly, ending the conversation. I nodded and left her sitting in her bed with her presumably cold casserole.

* * *

Five days later, Eloise was off her walker and was back to walking up and downstairs and going about life mostly normal. We had yet to have another conversation longer than three words since the night she had come home.

"I'm going to go out today." She said over an intensely awkward breakfast. I raised an eyebrow, realizing that she was already ready to go out.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I'm not going to sit about forever. I need a new wand and I need to replace the things I lost—including my handbag, wallet, my favorite shoes, and one of my favorite dresses." She said.

"How'd you lose the dress?"

"The bloodstains won't come out and there's a hole where the bullet went through." She said blandly. "So, I'm probably going to be out for a while. Finding the right wand alone can take hours." She added. "Of course I won't be able to get replacements for everything that was stolen, but I should be able to get most of it."

"What can't you replace?"

"The jewelry I was wearing had sentimental value. I was wearing a bracelet that my brother gave me for my seventeenth birthday—I never take if off, well at least I _used_ to never take it off." She sighed. "Don't worry, he left my wedding band." She added dryly, holding up her left hand. Sure enough, it was still there. "No offense, but I would've him rather take the ring than the bracelet."

"None taken. It's an ugly ring and you don't want to be married anyways." I said, genuinely not offended by that. She looked down at it.

"They really _are_ ugly, aren't they?" She sighed, frowning a bit. "Anyways, I'll be back late tonight." She added and stood up, Mipsy appearing immediately to take her plate. Eloise thanked her profusely for the wonderful breakfast before leaving. I heard the front door open and close a minute later as Mipsy took my plate away.

Not an hour later, an owl knocked on the window. I opened it and took the letter from the bird when he fluttered into the house—or at least I tried to. The bird viciously bit my fingers and hooted at me resentfully.

"She isn't here, so just give me the stupid letter." I snapped at it, only for the bird to bite me again. "Fine. Wait for her all you'd like." I told it.

At about ten that night, I heard the front door open from the sitting room. I was still looking for that motorcycle that I hadn't ever found in the papers.

"Mistress is home." Mipsy informed me, popping into the room to do so.

"I heard." I said. "Help her with her bags, won't you? I'm sure she's still a bit weak from her injury." I added absently before returning to the magazine I had been reading. "Also, let her know that the bird in the kitchen's waiting for her."

"Yes, Master." Mipsy said and vanished with a pop. I heard Mipsy appear in the next room, Padfoot's ears perking up at the sound.

"Mistress, let Mipsy take your bags."

"Are you sure? I really can carry them up, Mipsy."

"I'm sure Mistress. Master asked Mipsy to help you with your bags." There was a silence.

"Oh, well that's nice of both of you. Here you go—be careful this one's a bit heavy." There was a rustling sound of bags being moved around. "Thank you, Mipsy."

"Of course, Mistress. Master also said to tell you that the owl in the kitchen it waiting for you."

"Thank you, Mipsy." There was a pop and the elf presumably left with Eloise's bags, Eloise herself going to remove the letter from the bird. I got up and headed to the kitchen myself to see if the owl hated everyone or just me.

It appeared it just hated me because the bird was hooting gently at Eloise as she removed the letter from its leg, affectionately nipping the woman's fingers before Eloise stroked her wings and opened a window for the owl to leave from. She opened the letter and smiled a bit, a few slips of paper falling from it. They looked like they had come from magazines.

"That bird almost took my finger off." I said, making her jump and hastily hide the papers.

"She doesn't like men much—besides, it wasn't for you." She said, nodding down to the letter.

"Still, normal birds let anyone take the letters."

"It wasn't a normal letter." Eloise said. "There are important things in it." I raised an eyebrow.

"That's…mysterious." She shrugged.

"If I wanted you to know what I write my friends about, I'd let you know." She said, clearly thinking about the less-than-complimentary letter she had written about me.

"Obviously. Well, I'll leave you be with your secret letter. Your friend owes me a drink or something though—her bird almost removed my finger." I added, waving my index finger at her. I swear she _almost_ smiled.

"I'll let Melody know—she'll likely tell you to piss off to next Saturday though." She said. I almost smiled too, but didn't—barely managing to hide it.

"Lovely. Enjoy your letter." I said and left the room.

* * *

 _Lots of action, I know!_

 _See you back in '96!_


	8. The Awkward Lunch

_I'm back! Enjoy this intentionally awkward encounter between Ellie, Sirius, and Margot!_

 _Love, Essie_

* * *

 _Sirius, 1996_

I woke up in my shit rental flat in London to the phone ringing at some ungodly hour. I stumbled to the phone, checking the time: five in the fucking morning.

"Who the hell is it?" I snapped into the phone, annoyed with whoever thought calling now was a good idea.

" _Good morning to you too."_ A feminine voice said, sounding slightly annoyed. I only vaguely recognized it, still half-asleep. _"I heard you were harassing one of my best friends at her house."_ The pieces clicked into place. I hadn't recognized the voice because it was being filtered through the phone.

"Ellie."

" _Don't call me that."_ She snapped sternly. _"You have no right to anything but my full name."_ Fair enough. It still stung a little though.

"Sorry. Eloise. How can I help you at this horrific hour?" I asked, yawning.

" _Margot's decided she'd actually like to see you this weekend so I thought I'd call and set something up before I go into work this morning."_ I recalled that she had always been an early riser—especially once she had been really working full-time.

"And she's having you call instead of calling herself?"

" _She's a bit hesitant to reach out to you—see, you left her in tears after her last effort."_ Ellie said coldly. _"She wants to see you, but only for lunch and maybe a bit of shopping in the city this weekend. And she wants me to be there."_

"What day were you thinking?"

" _Saturday. If it were just her, any day would be fine, but I do work a full week—unlike some, I don't just sit on my ass and live off my family's fortune."_ She said pointedly. Wow, it was like when we had first gotten married. She was just as friendly then as she was now—hell, she might be even more openly hostile now.

"Yeah, that's fine—anytime is fine." I said, choosing to ignore her comment about my lack of employment right now. I was working for the Order, thank you very much. "Just give me a place and time."

" _Well, Margot needs to do a bit of shopping while we're in Paris so I suppose we'll just meet at where she needs to go and then go to lunch from there. Say eleven on Saturday?"_

"Sounds great. Where does she need to go?" Ellie gave me a name of a shop and told me to wait outside for them because 'you'll make a bloody idiot out of yourself and neither of us fancy being connected to the moron that doesn't know silk from chiffon'. "I'll be there. Thanks, Ell—Eloise." I said, catching myself.

" _I'll let Margot know. We'll see you Saturday."_

"Have a good day at work." I said and without another word, the line ran dead. She had hung up.

* * *

Saturday rolled around and I got dressed, making an effort to look like I hadn't just rolled out of bed and popped over to France at the last minute. Once 10:55 rolled around, I Apparated to where Ellie had told me to go.

I looked around to see what looked like a random street in Paris, but this is what Ellie had told me. She had definitely told me this street at this shop.

"Sirius." I turned around to see Ellie standing with Margot at her side. The first thing that struck me was how bloody _fashionable_ they both looked. I had been struggling ever since I had realized that it was a totally different world for clothing than it had been when I was arrested. Margot was in a sundress and Ellie was in denim cutoffs and a casual blouse, both of them in sunglasses and wedge heels with designer leather bags hanging off Margot's shoulder and Ellie's arm.

I probably should have been less shocked, considering that Ellie designs for a living and the odds that Margot had inherited that love were really high.

"Glad to see you found the right place. The city is always so hectic this time of year." Ellie said. "You've already met Margot, as I recall." She added, motioning towards the girl next to her. Margot smiled a bit.

"Yeah, we've met. Great to see you without handcuffs on me." I said. "What are we doing here exactly? You didn't say except 'shopping'."

"Hm? Oh, Margot needs to pick up a few things for a school project and we're both too small to comfortably carry bolts of cloth. Besides, it'll be good for you two to have something to chat about." Ellie said as she led us into a shop nearby. I got the impression from the set of her mouth that she wasn't excited to see me.

I wasn't surprised. She had sounded like she'd rather be doing anything else when she had called me to let me know that Margot wanted to see me, because it would require her to be there as well.

"I'll be around if you need anything, Ducky—I'm going to browse myself, okay?" Ellie added, taking her sunglasses off as we entered the shop. Margot nodded and removed her sunglasses as well. With that, Ellie walked off into the shelves.

"Where are we exactly?" I asked Margot, looking around.

"Fabric shop. I need to make a dress for my summer assignment for one of my classes and I need to get the right stuff for it." She said, looking around.

"A dress?"

"Mhm. I'm in Design _and_ Fabrics and Fibers—I need a design for one and I figured I might as well just make the dress as the other assignment." She said, pulling a folded up sheet of paper from her purse and handing it to me. I looked at it. It looked nothing like something Ellie would design, but the actual sketch itself seemed familiar. The same professor must still be teaching at Beauxbatons or something.

"It's really pretty." I said, handing it back to her. "Erm, what are you going to make it out of?" I asked, not knowing what to say. Ellie had never really talked about her work with me so I knew very little about design and the like—although I had lived with a designer for years.

"Well, Maman thinks I should stay away from chiffon and lean towards charmeuse, but I'm not entirely sold on that…" She trailed off, looking at the rolls of fabric on the shelves. "They're called 'bolts'—not rolls." She added suddenly. I just stared at her. "Legilimens, remember?"

"Right. How could I let that bit slip my mind?" I asked, looking around. "Why don't you agree with your mom?"

"I don't know. The idea of using charmeuse…it's used a lot in lingerie and really elegant gowns and I don't know if that's what I'm looking for. I kind of want it to be…I don't want it to be an _evening_ gown, if you know what I mean. I want something that you can dress up _or_ down."

"I really don't know what you mean. However, to be fair to your mom, she specializes in really fancy things, so maybe that's why she said that? She might just be more comfortable with it?" I said, not knowing what to say. "Either way, I don't have a clue about anything in this store."

She nodded a bit and kept browsing in silence. I had always felt this way when I ended up somewhere with Ellie for work: intensely out of my comfort zone—to the point I almost wished a fight would break out so I had something I was familiar with. Margot looked over at me suddenly.

"I don't suppose Harry goes places like this." She said. I raised an eyebrow. "I'm assuming the things he likely does are much more in your comfort zone—as this apparently isn't." She added as she paused at a bolt of fabric and examined it. I cleared my throat. I obviously wasn't watching my thoughts as well as I thought I was. "If you're trying to, it's a pathetic attempt." She answered. Admittedly, she had a point about my personal interests. Quidditch was much more suited to the things I really liked than walking around a fabric shop where everything looked pretty much interchangeable to me. "Well why don't you go back to England and play Quidditch with _Harry_ if you like it so much?" She was still examining the fabric. She wasn't bothering to look at me.

"I couldn't go play Quidditch with Harry even if I went back to England. He has to spend a month with his aunt because of reasons outside my control." I told her with a shrug. She moved on to another bolt of fabric, another color of blue.

"So you're only here because Harry's unavailable?" She asked coldly.

"Margot, I didn't say that."

"So I'm wrong? You'd rather be here with me and Maman than playing Quidditch with Harry?" She asked, looking over at me skeptically. It didn't take long for the, well _, me_ to come right out of her, did it? I hesitated, but said it anyways.

"I'm not here for your mother, Margot; we're not together anymore. I'm here to get to know you—I know her plenty and she knows me more than enough for us both to say that we don't have a future together." I said carefully. "Maybe a long time ago before I left Paris, maybe if there had never been a war, but not now. Anything we had before is long gone." She nodded.

"Obviously. Maman isn't the type of woman to let a man back in just so he can break her heart _again_." She said with a shrug. I felt an uncomfortable pang at that. "It's what you did, you know—you broke her heart. Loads of blokes have asked her out and every time she seems a little interested, she just…stops talking to him. She won't let anyone in. I asked her why once and she told me that nothing but time can fix some things and it hasn't been long enough since you left." Margot rambled as she pulled an entire bolt of fabric out. "Hm, this is the one I think." She added, as if she hadn't just been talking about her mother's emotions. "Oh no, maybe this one." She sighed, putting her hand on the one next to it. It looked literally the same to me. Margot stood on her toes and looked around. "Maman." She said at a reasonable level. Ellie appeared a moment later. "Which one?" Ellie ignored me and inspected the fabrics, touching each and appearing to think about it quite seriously, eyes flickering between them.

"I'm not sure. You're in that situation where I don't think you'll be able to tell until you start cutting and sewing—and get the fabrics out of this awful lighting." She said. "Get them both, mon canard—I'm sure we can find something to do with the one you don't use; you can even just take it to school with you and give it to Madame Clement if you don't want to leave it lying about the house." Margot nodded and handed the original bolt of fabric to her mother and pulled out the second one as well.

"Do you need anything?" Margot asked her mother.

"No, I just like looking. I don't work in colors like these—you know that." She said. "Come on, let's buy these and get something to eat—I know you didn't have breakfast this morning." With that, the two women walked to the counter and chatted with the cashier in French, smiling and laughing politely. I raised an eyebrow at the price on the little screen, but didn't comment. That wasn't cheap. Ellie didn't seem bothered by the price and just handed over her credit card.

"Do you want me to grab those?" I asked Margot nodded towards the bolts.

"Please—if you don't mind." I shrugged and picked them up as Ellie took her receipt and both women said their goodbyes to the cashier. We all left the shop and an awkward silence fell.

"Why don't we decide on somewhere to eat and I'll take those home?" Ellie said, clearly trying to make a graceful exit for at least a moment. "I'll just meet you there. Besides, I do think I left my blow dryer plugged in and that could be a huge problem—don't want to set the house on fire." Ellie and Margot chatted for a moment about food before coming to a decision. "You're sure you know how to get there on your own?"

"I'm sure. We'll see you there?" Margot clarified with her mother. Ellie nodded.

"Of course. Sirius, give me those. I'll see you there in about fifteen minutes." She said and took the bolts of fabric from me before looking around hastily and vanishing on the spot.

"She's still making wedding dresses?" I asked awkwardly. Margot nodded. "Ah, I should have guessed…so where are we going?" She nodded down the road.

"We're going that way." She said shortly, starting to walk. "So…how have you been since the trial?" She asked, clearly searching for something to say.

"Okay. Trying to get used to being a normal human being. One of my best mates from school has been a huge help." I said. "You said you're taking Design." She nodded. "What else are you taking in school?"

"Fabrics and Fibers—that's what the dress is for—and all your normal stuff. I don't know what you all call the classes at Hogwarts though. I'd have to ask Maman because she knows more about schooling in England than I do."

"Yeah, I have to admit that I don't know very much about Beauxbatons' schooling myself." I said. "I think you all have an equivalent of Muggle Studies though—I think your mom told me that once." She nodded.

"We do. I chose not to take it—it didn't interest me much, I mean I went to Muggle primary school and grew up with Maman working in a Muggle world until I went to Beauxbatons." She said. "I didn't feel like I needed to and Maman told me that I should take only what I find interesting and if I didn't find, ah, Muggle Studies, you said?" I nodded silently. "Right. She said if I didn't find Muggle Studies interesting, then I shouldn't bother with it." She told me as we walked.

"So, what do you find interesting? Clearly you like design in some capacity." I asked, trying to get to know the basics even a bit.

"I really like what Maman does, but I don't think that I'd like designing bridal gowns." She said thoughtfully. "Maman has a friend named Danny and he's a photographer for _Vogue_ and _Witch Weekly_ —he goes to all the shows and photographs everything and everyone there—and I think what he does is interesting too. Still, I have no eye for photography." She rambled.

"You have a better eye for it than I do." I snorted. "You _clearly_ inherited your mother's artistic talent." She raised an eyebrow.

"Not very artistic yourself?"

"That would be a massive understatement." I said. "Even I had been taught like you or your mom, I still would have been dreadful. My abilities are tragic on their own—let alone compared to you and your mother and other people with actual talent." She smiled a bit.

"Well, I don't have as much talent as Maman, but thank you." She said.

"She's had more experience than you have—she'd been drawing for two decades before you'd even been born—actually designing for actually five of them." I told her. "Don't feel too bad."

"I don't. Still, thank you." She said as we walked into a restaurant. Margot smiled at the hostess and chatted with her in French for a moment before she led us to a table where Ellie was already waiting, looking over a menu. Margot took a seat beside her mother. Ellie looked up at her daughter with a smile.

"Did you two have a nice walk here?" She asked pleasantly, placing her menu back on the table.

"Mhm. We talked about school." Margot said, picking up her own menu. "Did you order a drink yet?"

"Mhm." She said, looking slightly amused. She clearly knew what Margot was fishing for.

"Did you order for all of us?" She asked. Ellie suppressed a small smile.

"I didn't know what your father wanted, but I ordered for both of us, yes." She said, still looking amused. "Sirius, what do you want to drink?"

"Erm, coffee?" I said and it came out like a question. Really impressive, Sirius—just 'coffee'. Ellie waved a waitress over and smiled. She said something in rapid French and the waitress laughed, my wife clearly poking fun at my expense. Even Margot giggled a bit and tried to turn it into a cough. The waitress nodded and vanished with another smile. "Do I want to know?"

"You should have paid more attention to French when you lived here if you wanted to know. You lived here for five years—you should have learned in that time." Ellie said before examining her menu. I rolled my eyes. "Margot was completely bilingual and starting to learn Italian by the time she was five." She added, looking up at me over the top of menu.

"You know Italian?" I asked Margot. She nodded.

"A bit. Maman grew up with her parents and brother in Italy and I keep hoping she'll take me to see the country one day so I learned the language when we had to elect to take one in primary school." She said. "Once I left primary school to start at Beauxbatons, Maman helped me learn and some of my friends at school know Italian as well. I'm not fluent, but I'd like to be one day." She added just as the waitress came back and handed me a coffee with a smile. She handed Ellie and Margot each a glass and put a bottle on the table, starting to pull the cork out. "Ooh, thank you Maman." She said, her eyes lighting up. "What's the occasion?"

"For doing so well in school. I know how hard you work during the year and you should be very proud of yourself." Ellie said with a small yet obviously proud smile, neither of them looking up as the cork popped out. I recognized the way the cork was shaped almost immediately. It was champagne.

"She's still fourteen." I said to Ellie without thinking. Ellie raised an eyebrow at me, clearly not amused with the fact I had the audacity to question her parenting. Ellie said something to the waitress, waving her off from pouring. The woman left, the bottle open on the table and unpoured.

"And I say that it's okay." Ellie said calmly.

"She's a child."

"You'll have to forgive your father, Margot. He's under the impression that you have to oblige by the drinking rules he had to as a child." Ellie said, silently daring me to push her any harder. "We're not in England, Sirius—I'm her mother and I say she can drink and that makes it okay." She added as she poured champagne for Margot before for herself.

"And I'm her father and I say she can't." I argued back, remembering all the stupid shit I had done while drinking. Ellie snorted as she placed the bottle back in the ice bucket it had come out in. "Funny?"

"Sirius, what's Margot's birthday?" She asked abruptly. I raised an eyebrow. "It's not a hard question. What's your daughter's birthday?" I opened my mouth to inform her exactly when Margot's birthday was and then closed it. I actually had no idea when it was, although I vaguely remembered Ellie's due date being in the summer all those years ago. "Exactly. You can start contradicting my decisions when you know a thing about her." Ellie said. "Go on and drink, Ducky. I know it's your favorite." Margot nodded and took a sip of the champagne as her mother did the same.

I just stared at Ellie, shocked that she had just done that. She raised an eyebrow, silently asking if I had a problem that I was ballsy enough to voice. I looked down at the menu in front of me and realized that it was entirely in French. Brilliant. I picked out a few words I remembered faintly, but not nearly enough to figure out what anything actually was.

"What do you think you're going to get, Margot?" Ellie asked after a couple minutes, clearly figuring I wouldn't know what I was getting.

"I think I'm going to get the fish and clams. Do you know if they just come on a plate or is there something else?" She asked.

"They come on cook green peppers." She said. "It's quite good, although I can't say I know what the fish of the day is today." She added just as the waitress came back. She asked the table something in French and Margot ordered as Ellie continued to scan over the menu. She ordered herself and the waitress looked over at me. I looked over at my wife and daughter and Ellie rolled her eyes, taking the menu from me and saying something with a smile to the waitress before thanking her and handing her the third menu.

"What did you get me?" I asked her after a moment.

"A sandwich with dog meat on it." She said blandly, making Margot snort into her champagne.

"You're disgusting." I told her flatly.

"I ordered you squid." She said. I rolled my eyes. "What? Last I checked, you liked calamari." I opened my mouth to tell her that I most certainly did not like squid and then closed it.

"That's what calamari is?" Margot giggled, trying to turn it into a small coughing fit.

"Yes, Sirius. That's what calamari is." She said. "I almost ordered you the escargot, so be glad I'm in a charitable mood."

"I still can't believe the French eat snails." I sighed.

"You know it's actually quite good once you know how to get them out of their shells." Margot said. "Great appetizer." I made a face. I had never really been able to get on board with the more…exotic French foods even when I had lived here. A silence fell and Margot excused herself to the toilet after a couple minutes. Ellie immediately scowled at me.

"If you ever act like you know better than I do as to what's best for her again, we're going to have problems, Sirius." Ellie said. "You don't even know her middle name, let alone what's best for her."

"Eloise, I'm her parents as much—" She actually laughed.

"As much as I am? Oh, pull your head out of _your ass_. You can call yourself her parent when you start acting like it. I understand you'd like to be in her life, you'd be an idiot to want anything else, but you don't get to make parental decisions until you've done more than go to a lunch with her moderated by me." She said sternly. "Even then, even if you end up becoming a fully involved parent, you don't get more of a say than I do. We'd be equals in decisions in that case." I opened my mouth. "Don't. Don't even start with me. I'm not the same girl that was pushed into marrying you and I'm not _nearly_ as much of a pushover—that happens when you have to fend for not only yourself, but for your child completely on your own. You don't know me anymore than you know your daughter." Another silence fell.

"What is her middle name?"

"Luce."

"It's French."

"She was born in Paris, so I'd imagine so, yes." She said blandly.

"Why 'light'? Luce is French for 'light'."

"Because she was the only bright thing I had at that time in my life." Ellie said softly, no longer looking so tough. "I was alone and everything was so dark and scary and the second I held her she became this little spot of joy in my life—a life that was really miserable for a long time. She made everything a bit brighter for me no matter how hard things got—and things got _really_ hard." I didn't really have anything to say to that, seeing that the implication there was 'and it was your fault for leaving'.

Fortunately, I was saved from having to answer by the waitress coming back with the food for the three of us. Ellie thanked her quietly and gently placed a napkin on her lap, her ladylike tendencies shining through for only a heartbeat.

"Ooh, you got oysters?" Margot asked her mother as she returned from the toilets and took a seat. Ellie nodded. "You know Gabby told me that oysters are aphrodisiacs and that's why Kelly Beaumier eats so many at school." Ellie coughed.

"Did you say Beaumier?" She asked.

"Yeah, she's two years ahead of me—she's the school slut." Margot said matter-of-factly. "Why?"

"I knew Chloe Beaumier when I went to Beauxbatons." Ellie said. "Must be a niece or something." She said. "She was a bit…promiscuous herself, now that you mention it." Ellie admitted. "Still, there's no need to shame other girls for their sexual choices, Margot. As long as Kelly is being safe and taking care of herself, there's nothing wrong with having sex." She added. "And oysters are delicious." Ellie added after a moment, as she poked one of them with her fork to detach it from the shell.

"Are they really aphrodisiacs?" Margot asked.

"Supposedly." Ellie said after eating the oyster. "So is chocolate, so don't get too excited, thinking oysters are particularly sexy or something." She added. Margot nodded thoughtfully before looking over at me.

"How do you like the calamari?" She asked. I looked down and realized that I hadn't actually eaten anything, listening to that conversation.

"Oh, um it's good." I said, scrambling for a moment. Margot raised an eyebrow skeptically, but let it go.

Lunch passed in an awkward silence only interrupted by Ellie's attempts to start conversation, something no one was very receptive to. I didn't really have anything to say to her and Margot appeared to be holding off on being too friendly with me in front of her mother for some reason. She eventually gave up and just ate her lunch, asking for the check as soon as we all finished.

"How much is it?" I asked. "I can pay." Ellie looked up at me.

"Do you have anything other than galleons and pounds with you?" She asked. I opened my mouth and then closed it. "That's what I thought." She said and pulled out a wad of euros. "Still, thank you for offering." She said after a moment, probably realizing that was the appropriate thing to say.

Looking for a way to exit the conversation—or lack thereof—even for a moment, I exited to the toilets. Padfoot's hearing caught Margot and Ellie chatting in quiet French as I walked away. Well that probably wasn't good.

When I came back, Ellie and Margot both stood, indicating that it was time to leave and give the restaurant its table back. I saw Margot pointedly look at her mother for some reason.

"You know, I have to leave town for a while in a couple weeks." Ellie said. "Normally, Margot would spend the week with one of her friends from school, but we were wondering if you'd be willing to have her stay with you instead." I raised an eyebrow and looked over at Margot.

"I always feel really bad crashing with Gabby and her family when Maman's away and besides, we have to spend some time together eventually." She said. "If you don't want to, it's fine—I know it's a long time, but I promise not to be a pain."

"Oh, um sure, I don't mind. When is this?" I asked. "I've only now started looking for flats to rent in Paris; I'm in London full time right now."

"The Saturday after next, so the sixteenth, to the twenty-third." Ellie said. "If you don't have something figured by then, it's fine—she can always stay with you another time. I don't want her in England unless there is absolutely no other option. I don't fancy her being in the press unless there is no way around it."

"I'm sure I can have something sorted by then, although it might not be terribly luxurious." I said and Margot smiled brightly.

"Brilliant." She said. "I'll write Gabby to let her know so they don't keep anticipating me staying with them."

"Whenever you get something sorted, just give the house and ring to give me the address so I know where to drop Margot off and we'll pick a time for drop off then." Ellie said, treating this like a business transaction—albeit one that was extremely important to her.

"Right, I have your number so that shouldn't be a problem." I said. "I suppose I'll see you both then." I added and they both nodded.

"Definitely." Margot said. Ellie nodded once.

"We'll see you then, Sirius." She said. "Ducky, are you ready to go home?" Margot nodded and quickly hugged me before taking her mother's arm. I was completely taken by surprise by the hug—to the point I barely reacted. "We'll see you one the sixteenth." Ellie said and Apparated them away with a pop.

* * *

 _See you back in the seventies!_

 _Essie_


End file.
